Final answer:
The link between stimulus and response involves the associations that organisms learn between stimuli and their reactions, where a neutral stimulus can become a conditioned stimulus eliciting a conditioned response. Discrimination and generalization help organisms to respond appropriately to different cues. Furthermore, integration within the nervous system is crucial for processing stimuli and generating specific responses.
Step-by-step explanation:
The link between stimulus and response is a fundamental concept in biology and psychology, representing the process by which organisms detect and react to changes in their environment. In terms of classical conditioning, organisms learn to associate a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus that naturally triggers a reflex.
For example, Pavlov's dogs learned to associate a tone with being fed, resulting in salivation. When this association is formed, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that elicits the same response as the unconditioned stimulus, now termed a conditioned response.
Stimulus discrimination and stimulus generalization are additional learning processes that enable organisms to determine which stimuli will trigger learned responses and which will not, allowing appropriate reactions to different environmental cues. However, if the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus (e.g., the tone without food), the association can become weaker, a process known as extinction.
Integration is also a key aspect of how stimuli and responses are connected. Sensory stimuli are processed by the nervous system where they are integrated with other stimuli, memories, or the individual's current state, leading to a specific response. For instance, in humans, the physiological reaction to cold is to shiver, which is a direct response to the environmental change.