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Thursday, December 2, 2010

LEARNING

LEARNING

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
classical conditioning learning procedure in which two stimuli are paired – one (the conditioned stimulus) usually presented shortly before the other (the unconditioned stimulus) to produce a conditioned response to the first stimulus (learning)

The physical basis of the changes that constitute learning lies in the brain, and neuroscientists are close to discovering exactly what these changes are. Foremost among these is the concept of association.[association a link between two events or entities that permits one to activate the other (such as when a characteristic odour elicits an image of the place where it was once experienced)] There is a philosophical tradition, going back at least 300 years, which supposes that, when two events (ideas or states of consciousness) are experienced together, a link, connection or association forms between them, so that the subsequent occurrence of one is able to activate the other. In the twentieth century the proposal was taken up by experimental psychologists, who thought that association formation might be a basic psychological process responsible for many, if not all, instances of learning. The first to explore this possibility in any depth was the Russian I.P. Pavlov with his work on classical conditioning.

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