Every day, when Ronnie comes home from work, he opens his garage door and pulls his car into the garage. His dog, Jonah, hears t
he noise of the garage door opening and the car entering the garage before Ronnie comes through the garage door. Now, when Jonah hears the garage door open, Jonah runs to the garage door to greet Ronnie. This is an example of
Classical conditioning is a perspective on behaviour in which a conditioned stimulus (the noise of the garage door) is associated with an unrelated consequence, called unconditioned stimulus (Ronnie arriving). This produces a reaction known as conditioned response.
Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov demonstrated his theory on classical conditioning with a famous experiment: he would ring a bell before feeding a dog. In time, the dog would start salivating at the sound of the bell.
