Chapter 7 Entry

From birth to death we are constantly learning new things everyday. Our learning is a permanent change in our behavior due to the experiences we encounter daily. One type of learning that we go through is classical conditioning. In order to learn we use associative learning by using certain events that occur together. This can be done through classical conditioning when the events are two stimuli or through operant conditioning which deals with a response and its consequences. When we learn through classical conditioning we are linking two or more stimuli and anticipating events. For example I have been conditioned to know that when a fire alarm goes there is a fire. I don't have to wait to see smoke before I come to this realization. Before I associated a fire alarm to mean fire it was just a neutral stimulus that didn't gain a reaction. What did get a response was the smoke coming from the fire. This is the unconditioned stimulus and always gets an automatic response that there's a fire. When I saw smoke my reaction is to call 911 and get somewhere safe. This is my unconditioned response. In order to respond in this same for when the fire alarm goes off I had to be conditioned. Every time I saw smoke the fire alarm would go off and eventually I learned that the fire alarm means fire. Now whenever the alarm goes off I know that there is a fire without having to look for smoke. The fire alarm is now the conditioned stimulus and my reaction to it is the conditioned response.