Classical conditioning doesn’t exist

Perhaps one of the most traditional distinctions in the history of psychology is between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. The strange thing is that theorists and researchers who have been working on these issues have assumed uncritically the distinction as “historically given ‘.

But, what is classical conditioning and operant conditioning?

Classical conditioning, as sure you remember, was first demonstrated experimentally by Ivan Pavlov as he was studying the digestive physiology of dogs (studies, the latter, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1904). On Wikipedia is described as:

 is a form of learning in which one stimulus, the conditioned stimulus or CS, comes to signal the occurrence of a second stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus or US. The US is usually a biologically significant stimulus such as food or pain that elicits a response from the start; this is called the unconditioned response or UR. The CS usually produces no particular response at first, but after conditioning it elicits the conditioned response or CR.

Moreover, American Functionalism (and, especially, the work of Edward Thorndike) coined the term ‘instrumental conditioning’ which was renamed by Skinner with the new name of ‘operant conditioning’. We also read in wikipedia that this conditioning:

is a form of learning in which an individual’s behavior is modified by its consequences; the behaviour may change in form, frequency, or strength.

As I say, Skinner assumes that the ‘classic’ response is that which elicits reflexively and ‘operant’ response is emitted “freely and spontaneously.” Therefore, the definition of the conditioning pivots on whether the reinforcer is contingent with a conditioned stimulus (classical conditioning or type E) or with an operant response (classical conditioning or R).

But, is there really a difference?

Buchanan would say, this is the response we would expect from a psychology student when asked about the types of conditioning. The tendency of most would put good marks, until, as we also say Buchanan, from the back another student, whimsical and eccentric, would say: “But there is really no difference.”

And there is no real difference. Or, before before that I’ll be accused of provoking, classical conditioning is a special case of operant conditioning and therefore the division, both academic and institutional, between both types is misleading.

If you think a second, the idea of ‘Pavlovian experience’ is the possibility of generating conditional reflex responses without any mediation of operant behavior. The problem is apparently what is meant by behavior.

What is the behavior?

Perhaps the most interesting concept of behavior we have is that of ‘discriminated contingency’ exposed by Ortega Fuentes. With ‘discriminated contingency’ we mean that all behavior is a transition from the contingency discrimination to (possible) obtain the discriminated contingency. Operant behavior, therefore, is a process by reaching a possible achievement which is being perceived as achievable. To extend the idea, if someone wants to recommend this Ernesto Quiroga’s spanish text.

One idea that emerges from this conception: every contingency is discrimination and there is no question of discrimination separately from contingency. That is, the logical consequence of our definition is that perception (apothetic by nature) it can be considered an operant behavior.

A single model of conditioning

We got it. Any ‘Pavlovian experience’ is mediated by an operant behavior (a process by reaching a possible achievement which is being perceived as achievable) and therefore can not speak of classical conditioning as separate operant conditioning.