17 Facts About Classical conditioning

Classical conditioning is distinct from operant conditioning, through which the strength of a voluntary behavior is modified by reinforcement or punishment.

Classical conditioning was first studied in detail by Ivan Pavlov, who conducted experiments with dogs and published his findings in 1897.

Classical conditioning is a basic behavioral mechanism, and its neural substrates are now beginning to be understood.

Together with operant conditioning, classical conditioning became the foundation of behaviorism, a school of psychology which was dominant in the mid-20th century and is still an important influence on the practice of psychological therapy and the study of animal behavior.

Classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

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Best-known and most thorough early work on classical conditioning was done by Ivan Pavlov, although Edwin Twitmyer published some related findings a year earlier.

Classical conditioning redirected the animal's digestive fluids outside the body, where they could be measured.

The speed of Classical conditioning depends on a number of factors, such as the nature and strength of both the CS and the US, previous experience and the animal's motivational state.

Experiments on theoretical issues in Classical conditioning have mostly been done on vertebrates, especially rats and pigeons.

However, Classical conditioning has been studied in invertebrates, and very important data on the neural basis of Classical conditioning has come from experiments on the sea slug, Aplysia.

In one of these, proposed by Nicholas Mackintosh, the speed of Classical conditioning depends on the amount of attention devoted to the CS, and this amount of attention depends in turn on how well the CS predicts the US.

The rise and decay of element activation enables the model to explain time-dependent effects such as the fact that Classical conditioning is strongest when the CS comes just before the US, and that when the CS comes after the US the result is often an inhibitory CS.

Pavlov proposed that Classical conditioning involved a connection between brain centers for conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.

Forms of classical conditioning that are used for this purpose include, among others, fear conditioning, eyeblink conditioning, and the foot contraction conditioning of Hermissenda crassicornis, a sea-slug.

Fear and eyeblink Classical conditioning involve generally non overlapping neural circuitry, but share molecular mechanisms.

Fear Classical conditioning occurs in the basolateral amygdala, which receives glutaminergic input directly from thalamic afferents, as well as indirectly from prefrontal projections.

Some therapies associated with classical conditioning are aversion therapy, systematic desensitization and flooding.