in classical conditioning, the association that is learned is between a particular “sound” or “image” and the person or thing that is associated with it.
The association is the actual physical action that takes place. The association is the brain-based representation of the associated object. So if you associate the sound of a hammer pounding against a wood floor to the sound of a hammer hitting a wooden floor, you will tend to associate the sound of the hammer with the hammer. The association is the physical effect; the brain-based representation of the object.
A good example of this is when you learn to read. If you associate the words in a paragraph with the paragraph, you will tend to associate the words in a paragraph with the words in the paragraph. The association is the mental representation of the words in the paragraph.
When we learn a new language, or learn a new skill, we associate it with a familiar tool. This association is formed in our brains based on the cues that are present in the environment. In the case of language learning, the cues are the associations, or patterns of associations, that exist between words. In other words, the cues are the associations we make between words in our brains.
The same thing applies to the link association between words. The associations in our brains, or when we learn a new language, will include the associations between words. So, imagine you’re in a classroom, and you know you’re in a course on classical conditioning, the learning of associations between words or concepts. Imagine you’re sitting there in the classroom and you have no idea what you’ve learned.
Classical conditioning is the learning of associations between stimuli, such as words, and responses, such as actions. The associations are learned through practice. But because we don’t know what we’ve learned, we have no way of knowing if were actually doing what we’re taught to do. So we have a lot of room for error.
Classically conditioned people are generally well-adjusted, but they are also prone to mistakes. When we make a mistake, we can’t really remember what we’ve done wrong. However, over time, the mistake becomes second nature, and we don’t need to think about it anymore. Learning to associate a mistake with something positive, or something worse, makes us much calmer and less likely to make mistakes.
In order to learn from our mistakes, we have to actually do them on purpose. Otherwise, we are still stuck in a time loop of sorts, where we are only aware of our own little missteps. This makes it harder to remember what weve done wrong, and it makes it that much harder for us to learn from the mistakes that weve made, because we are constantly reminded of our mistakes.
A similar phenomenon can be observed in humans. The more we associate something bad with something good, the more we become calmer and more likely to make mistakes. The difference is that a mistake that we do not make consciously and automatically can be corrected by simply doing it again, without remembering that we have done so. In this way, making mistakes is much like classical conditioning, and they are the same kind of thing.
We all know that we can get better at something if we practice it a few times. A good example of this is weight-training. If you want to build upper and lower body muscle, try lifting weight for a couple of minutes each day, even if your aim is to do it without thinking about it. Try it on a regular basis, and you will see the results.
