The subject of classical conditioning is one of the most fundamental aspects of behavioral psychology. It is an entirely passive and involuntary reflex response that is programmed into an individual through repetitive stimuli. The mind interprets a simplistic stimulus and produces a response in accordance with the anticipatory corollary.

The concept of intentionally formulated conditioned responses came from the Russian Nobel Prize Laureate, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, who took notice of conditioning patterns in the dogs he raised.  The premise of Pavlov’s work came from his conjecture about how entirely unrelated environmental stimuli can evoke a conditioned behavior through repeated stimulus and response conditioning in a controlled environment. If all other variables are held relatively constant, or ceteris paribus. then the effects of one stimulus and its elicited actions can be repeated until the test participant has been sufficiently conditioned.

One of the best ways to measure the response of a test subject is through the observation of the dilation of the pupil. The pupil’s response can be conditioned through experimentation. A Pavlovian response occurs as a result of the repeated stimulus; it is the evaluation of the anticipatory response observed in repetitious experimentation, conditioning the same response to repeated and static situations.

Recommended Experiment

To test the concept of classical conditioning, the following experiment may be conducted with minimal supplies. A human fear conditioning procedure will be conducted in this experiment. The anticipatory response to the use of complex conditioning patterns will be observed.

This experiment will require a cat or a dog, twenty balloons, a threading needle or safety pin and a bell. Sit the cat or dog in front of you and begin blowing up a balloon. Let it get to a large size and ringing a bell, poke the needle into the balloon, causing it to burst abruptly. Repeat this 20 times. On the twenty first time, blow the balloon up, and ring the bell. The dog or cat should show signs of flinching in anticipation of the long time. The ringing of the bell, or the conditioned stimulus (CS), evokes the fear, or conditioned response (CR).

Results and Discussion

The Controlled Stimulus is the balloon popping. The Conditioned Response is fear which is created by the inflation of the balloon and anticipated popping. Inflating the balloon in front of the animal will gain the animal’s attention initially; due to the relatively new experience of watching the balloon inflate, the animal will not expect anything like the abrupt bursting of the balloon. When the balloon is popped, it will cause a defensive startling of the animal. The loud noise and the burst of air will cause the animal to raise its shoulders, squint, grimace and move his arms back toward its body.

This will likely not have to be repeated multiple times as the conditioning of a pupillary response would. A previously neutral stimulus (the overinflated balloon), followed by the important stimulus (the explosion that occurs when the balloon stretches to the bursting point) will now trigger the defensive flinching response by itself. The defensive flinching response has been classically conditioned to the signt of an inflating balloon.