Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated

Classical Conditioning

A technique used to associate a stimulus with an unconscious physical or emotional response.

Classical conditioning was the first type of learning to be studied by behavioral psychologists. Lab workers discovered the technique when they noticed that dogs in the laboratory began salivating as soon as they entered the room. Because the lab workers feed the dogs, their presence (neutral stimulus) had become associated with food (trigger stimulus), and, therefore, elicited the same response as the food itself (salivation). Similar behaviors are seen in fish when they surface at the sight of an approaching person, or in cats when they come running at the sound of a can opener.1

Classical conditioning is commonly used in animal ...