Classical conditioning
MCAT glossary · Psychological, Social & Biological Foundations of Behavior
Definition
Learning in which a neutral stimulus, paired with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to elicit a conditioned response.
Classical conditioning in plain English
Classical conditioning is how your brain learns to link two things that keep happening together, so one starts to trigger a reaction that used to only follow the other. The famous example: a dog naturally drools at food (that's automatic), and if a bell rings every time food shows up, eventually the bell alone makes the dog drool. The bell went from meaningless ("neutral") to meaningful just by being paired with something that already caused a reaction. It's the same reason a certain song can suddenly give you butterflies — your brain glued the song to a feeling.
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