Experiments with Conditioning
There have been many experiments conducted to see whether Classical
Conditioning really does work. Here is the most popular one:  Perhaps the most widely known experiment is the one with the salivating dogs. This experiment was done by Russian scientist, Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov was the first to describe Classical Conditioning. In his experiment, he paired a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response. The neutral stimulus was a bell, the unconditioned stimulus was meat powder, and the unconditioned response was salivation by the dogs. He then rang the bell everytime he fed the dogs. The dogs became accustomed to the bell and associated the sound of the bell to the receiving of food. Soon, just hearing the bell was enough to make the dogs salivate in anticipation of food. Thus, the tone becomes the conditioned stimulus and the salivation the conditioned response.  |