By the time the organism learns stimulus discrimination it has learned the association and in the extinction stage the classical conditioning gets over. So the correct option would be discrimination.
Learning by association means learning of several events occurring together which either may be two stimuli or the response along with its consequences. Conditioning can be referred as the process of learning by association and classical conditioning is the learning which occurs involving linking of two or more stimuli and then anticipating the event.
There are five major processes involved in classical conditioning:
• Acquisition- organism learns to get associated
• Stimulus Generalization- organism produces behaviour identical to the conditional response when it is confronted by a stimulus similar to conditional stimulus.
• Stimulus Discrimination- The organism’s ability to learn to differentiate between other stimuli and conditional stimulus.
• Extinction- In this process the classical conditioning is over and subject does not produce conditional response to the conditional stimulus.
• Spontaneous recovery- The sudden response of the organism with conditional response as a reaction to any stimulus.
