PSYC 351 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Classical Conditioning, Latent Inhibition, Habituation
27 Mar 2020
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Document Summary
Most basic question one can ask about classical conditioning. First posed by pavlov and continues to attract the attention of contemporary researchers. Pavlov"s answer to this question was implied by his definition of the terms conditioned and unconditioned. According to these definitions, the cs does not elicit the conditioned response initially but comes to do so as a result of becoming associated with the us. By contrast, the us is effective in eliciting the target response from the outset (unconditionally) without any special training. Pavlov"s definitions were stated in terms of the elicitation of the response to be conditioned. Because of this, identifying potential css and uss requires comparing the responses elicited by each stimulus before conditioning. This makes the identification of css and uss relative. A particular event may serve as a cs relative to one stimulus and as a us relative to another. In studies of habituation, the behavioral impact of a stimulus depends on its novelty.
