Meaning & use
conditioned stimulus
In psychology, a previously neutral stimulus that, through repeated pairing with another stimulus, comes to trigger a learned response.
See it in a sentence
In Pavlov's experiment, the bell became a conditioned stimulus that made the dogs salivate.
Advertisers sometimes try to turn a jingle into a conditioned stimulus linked to positive feelings.
A note on using this word
Conditioned stimulus is a technical term from classical conditioning, contrasted with the 'unconditioned stimulus,' which triggers a response naturally.
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