Definition

Noun: An acquired response that is under the control of, or dependent on, the occurrence of a specific stimulus. It is a learned reaction that occurs only when a particular condition or signal is present.

Usage

A conditional response is a term primarily used in psychology and behavioral science. It describes a reaction that an organism learns to produce in anticipation of a specific event or trigger. This contrasts with an innate, automatic reflex.

Examples

• In Pavlov's famous experiment, the dog's salivation upon hearing a bell was a conditional response.
• Feeling anxious when entering a dentist's office can be a conditional response formed from prior experiences.
• The researcher measured the strength of the conditional response to the light signal.

Advanced Usage

• In Behavioral Therapy: Therapists work to extinguish maladaptive conditional responses, such as phobic reactions, by breaking the association between the stimulus and the response.
• "Conditioned response": This is a more common synonym and is often used interchangeably with "conditional response" in academic literature. The process of creating such a response is called .

Variants and Related Words

• Conditioned response (n): The most frequent synonym.
• Conditioned reflex (n): Often used when the learned response is a simple, automatic physiological reaction.
• CR (n): A common abbreviation in scientific writing.
• Unconditional response (n): The innate, unlearned reaction to a stimulus (e.g., salivation to food).

Synonyms

• Conditioned response
• Acquired reflex
• Learned response

Antonyms

• Unconditional response
• Unconditioned reflex
• Innate response

Noun

1. an acquired response that is under the control of (conditional on the occurrence of) a stimulus