AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Classical conditioning was stumbled upon by accident. Pavlov was conducting research on the digestion of dogs when he noticed that the dogs’ physical reactions to food subtly changed over time. At first, the dogs would only salivate when the food was placed in front of them.

Detailed explanation-2: -First discovered by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), classical conditioning is a learning process governed by associations between an environmental stimulus and another stimulus which occurs naturally. All classical conditioned learning involves environmental interaction.

Detailed explanation-3: -Classical conditioning definition The best-known example of this is from what some believe to be the father of classical conditioning: Ivan Pavlov. In an experiment on canine digestion, he found that over time dogs were salivating not only when their food was presented to them, but when the people who fed them arrived.

Detailed explanation-4: -Pavlov’s Dogs The most famous example of classical conditioning was Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with dogs, who salivated in response to a bell tone. Pavlov showed that when a bell was sounded each time the dog was fed, the dog learned to associate the sound with the presentation of the food.

Detailed explanation-5: -The sound of a metronome was chosen to be the neutral stimulus. The dogs would first be exposed to the sound of the ticking metronome, and then the food was immediately presented. After several conditioning trials, Pavlov noted that the dogs began to salivate after hearing the metronome.