A conditioned stimulus It is all that internal or external stimulus that initially does not cause any reaction in an organism. However, through a classical conditioning process, you get him to create a response. The conditioned stimulus is the counterpart of the unconditioned stimulus.
The study of how both elements are related is the basis of conditioning and behavioral psychology. It was studied for the first time by the scientist Ivan Pavlov, in his famous experiment in which he managed to provoke salivation in dogs by ringing a bell.
Understanding how conditioned stimuli work and how to create them is of great importance for many disciplines. For example, this knowledge is used in marketing and advertising, in learning and in psychology. In this article we will study its characteristics and see some examples.
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By their very nature, conditioned stimuli do not elicit any kind of response spontaneously. On the contrary, reactions only appear once the organism has undergone a classical conditioning process.
This process does not have to take place in a calculated way: in our day to day we encounter many situations that cause the creation of conditioned stimuli in our mind. However, if created consciously, associations tend to be more powerful and long-lasting..
The classical conditioning process consists of getting an animal or person to associate a neutral stimulus with another that provokes a response..
For example, it is possible to associate a sound, a color or a sensation with a certain type of food; in this way, each time the conditioned stimulus is present, we would feel hungry and begin to salivate.
In fact, this was the kind of association that was made in the first ever experiment on classical conditioning. In this one, Pavlov presented dogs with a bowl of food while ringing a bell. Meanwhile, he measured the amount of saliva the animals generated to see what their hunger response was..
At first, the bell was not capable of producing any type of salivation in dogs. However, after repeating the association of sound with food a certain number of times, just by listening to it the animals began to generate saliva, exactly as if they were looking at the food plate.
Not all conditioned stimuli are equally powerful. Depending on factors such as the associations used, or the number of times the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli occur together, the intensity of the responses can vary enormously..
For this reason, much of the studies of behavioral psychology have to do with how best to produce powerful responses in certain organisms. It must be taken into account that, in different species, the strategies to be followed will also vary.
If, for example, we associate the color green (conditioned stimulus) with the sensation of hunger (unconditioned stimulus), theoretically this color could be used to create a second weaker association.
Thus, once the first conditioning process has been carried out, we could use the color green to create a second conditioned stimulus that would also cause a sensation of hunger in the body..
However, research suggests that it would not be possible to carry out this process a third time, since the association would then be too weak..
Conditioned stimuli don't have to be so forever. In general, if the unconditioned stimulus is stopped at the same time for a certain number of times, the response elicited in the body will eventually disappear.
This process is known as extinction. It is of great importance in the treatment of certain psychological problems, in addition to being related to the other type of conditioning that exists, which is based on reinforcements and punishments..
Creating a conditioned stimulus is not especially easy. Generally, several conditions have to be met for something previously neutral to create a powerful response in the body..
One of the most important factors is that the unconditional response must be very strong. Therefore, the conditioning created usually has to do with very primal instincts, such as hunger, sexual response, fear or disgust..
On the other hand, the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned will be better associated if they previously had a certain relationship. For example, it is easier to condition the hunger response to the image of a hamburger than to the photograph of a mountain.
Finally, the way in which both stimuli are presented also influences whether they are conditioned or not. In general, the unconditioned stimulus has to be presented before the conditioned stimulus, although the most effective order will depend on the particular nature of both..
Next we will see two examples of conditioned stimuli and the type of response to which they can be associated.
Imagine that one day you are riding a bicycle down the street and suddenly a dog attacks you. From that point on, you will most likely associate the location of the incident with the situation. Therefore, the street (which was previously neutral) would have become a conditioned stimulus (since it would cause you fear).
One of the most curious types of classical conditioning is known as "acquired aversion to taste." In this, a person tries a new type of food (at first, a neutral stimulus), but after consuming it, it goes bad shortly after..
From that moment, just by smelling or tasting that type of food the person will feel disgusted and rejected by it. Thus, a new conditioned stimulus would have been created spontaneously, even if food intake had nothing to do with the discomfort suffered later.
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