Classical Conditioning vs. Operant Conditioning
             Trying to change a behavior that is learned is and never will be easy. But through classical or operant conditioning this process might become a little bit easier. Classical conditioning is a simple form of learning in which organisms comes to associate or anticipate events. Operant conditioning is a simple form of learning in which an organism learns to engage in behavior because it is reinforced. To find out if this is true, I performed a little experiment of my own. I used my cat to try and figure out if I can change her behavior with a simple slide of a drawer.
             The experiment was based on classical conditioning, and mainly modeled after Ivan Pavlov's study of his dogs. The drawer was my neutral stimulus, the food the unconditioned stimulus, and the cats' final response to the drawer opening the conditioned response. A neutral stimulus is some action that at first to the learner is meaningless which in this situation would be the drawer opening at the beginning of the experiment. An unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned stimulus that elicits a response before any conditioning occurs which would be the cats food. A conditioned response is a learned response to a conditioned stimulus which in the situation would be the opening of the drawer.
             I started very simple just by feeding the cat; she had become accustomed to being fed at a particular time of day so she would sit by her bowl until I fed her. Then I began to put her food in a drawer very close to the portion of the room where I fed her. I changed the time of day that I fed her to twice a day, and it varied from day to day. I was hoping that I could use the noise of the drawer opening to make her come to her bowl and sit down. At first she did not respond to the drawer only to the sound of the food being poured into the bowl. After a few days she finally started to respond to the drawe
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