Little Mark plays with a balloon that pops in his face, frightening him. When he sees a balloon next time, he starts to cry. The learning demonstrated in this example is called_________.

Little Mark plays with a balloon that pops in his face, frightening him. When he sees a balloon next time, he starts to cry. The learning demonstrated in this example is called classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning is a learning process first described by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist. In classical conditioning, an individual learns to associate a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that naturally produces a response. Before conditioning occurs, the neutral stimulus (in Little Mark's case, the balloon) does not produce the response of fear or crying. However, if the neutral stimulus (balloon) is paired multiple times with an unconditioned stimulus (the loud pop that happens when the balloon bursts, which naturally scares him), the subject learns to associate the two. Eventually, the previously neutral stimulus alone can evoke the response, even without the unconditioned stimulus. This is known as a conditioned response.