The way we learn these things are through a process called Classical Conditioning. It all started when a “Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov found that before he fed his dogs, when they smelled, saw the food, or even the person that feeds them, they would slobber. Pavlov figured out that dogs had learned that these things had become signals that food was coming. He wanted to see if he could make other things be signals to the dogs, so he decided to try to pair it with a bell ringing. He rang the bell, presented the dog food and the dogs would slobber. …show more content…
The parts of it are, unconditioned stimulus, which in this case is the dog food, the unconditioned response, is the slobber, the conditioned stimulus is the bell, and then the conditioned response will again be the slobber, the repeated pairings of this is called acquisition (Plous, S.). In example with the dogs, in overtime you, stop giving the dogs the food after hearing the bell it will gradually lose the ability to make the dogs slobber. But if you again pair the bell with the dog food, in a short time, salivation at the sound of the bell will return.
Classical conditioning applies to everyone, and everyday tasks. Whether we know it or not, many actions we do numerous times a day are a direct result of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is defined as: “A process by which a previously neutral stimulus acquires the capacity to elicit a response through association with a stimulus that already elicits a similar or related response” (Plous, …show more content…
This may seem a bit silly, but it is important to understand that there is a difference between learning and performance. For example, “if you are in a car going to school with a friend every day, but your friend is driving all the time, you may learn the way to get to school, but have no reason to demonstrate this knowledge. However, when you friend gets sick one day and you have to drive yourself for the first time, if you can get to school following the same route you would go if your friend was driving, then you have demonstrated latent learning”. (Plous,