operant and classical conditioning?

Vern Serratos: Well, let's see. First, classical conditioning studies usually deal with teaching animals or people to change their reflex reactions (like Pavlov's dogs salivating or, in humans, the blink response) when you pair the reflex action with a sounds or a smell.Operant conditioning studies are broader: you can teach someone to do just about anything using rewards. An example is how Skinner trained pigeons to play tennis by rewarding them when they hit the ball with their beaks.Here's an example: someone blows a puff of air in your eye. What happens? You blink. The unconditioned (that is unlearned) stimulus is the puff of air. It makes you blink. The blink is an unconditioned (unlearned) response. You don't have to learn to blink - it happens by reflex.Then, the person who blows into your eye first rings a bell one second before blowing into your eye. He or she does this about 10 times. On the 11th time, she rings the bell and you blink even before the puff! of air. Now the bell is a conditioned (that is, learned) stimulus. The blink is still a blink, but when it occurs right after the bell we now call it a conditioned (learned) response. Well, I hope this helps.Michaelhttp://www.thepsychfiles.com...Show more