Final answer:
A neutral stimulus is a stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response. Pavlov used a tone as a neutral stimulus in his classical conditioning experiments with dogs, pairing it with a meat powder that naturally caused salivation. The tone eventually became a conditioned stimulus that elicited salivation.
Step-by-step explanation:
In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus (NS) is a stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response. Pavlov used a tone as a neutral stimulus in his experiments with dogs. He paired the tone with a meat powder (unconditioned stimulus) that naturally caused salivation in dogs. Through repeated pairings, the neutral stimulus became a conditioned stimulus (CS) that elicited a salivation response.