Final answer:
Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning experiments involved dogs salivating to the unconditioned stimulus of food, and then to a bell, the conditioned stimulus, after repeated pairings. This demonstrated the learned association between a neutral stimulus and a natural response. Operant conditioning, by contrast, involves a behavior being reinforced or punished, such as studying leading to better AP® test grades.
Step-by-step explanation:
Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist famous for confirming the existence of classical conditioning through his experiments with dogs. Classical conditioning, or Pavlovian conditioning, is a learning process in which an organism learns to associate two stimuli that repeatedly occur together. In his experiments, Pavlov observed the unconditioned response of dogs salivating to the unconditioned stimulus of seeing or smelling their food. He then introduced a neutral stimulus, the sound of a bell, which he consistently paired with the food presentation. Over time, the dogs began to salivate in response to the bell alone, which became the conditioned stimulus, demonstrating the formation of the conditioned response. This experiment illustrates how a previously neutral stimulus can evoke a response after being associated with a stimulus that naturally elicits a response.
Operant conditioning differs from classical conditioning as it involves learning an association between a behavior and its consequence, such as reinforcement or punishment. In comparison, classical conditioning involves the association between two stimuli, with no behavior by the organism being reinforced or punished. Learning to improve grades on an AP® test through studying would be an example of operant conditioning, where the behavior (studying) is reinforced by the consequence (better grades).