ORIGINS OF "CONDITIONED" AND "UNCONDITIONED"

ORIGINS OF "CONDITIONED" AND "UNCONDITIONED" ORIGINS OF "CONDITIONED" AND "UNCONDITIONED"

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Origins of "Conditioned" And "Unconditioned"

According to one story, the English version Pavlov's writings were first translated with the guidance of the German translation from the original Russian. The German word "bedingt" has two meanings that have different words in English: "conditioned" and "conditional." It was translated as the more common conditioned, but Conditional and Unconditional are more accurate translations of the Russian, and they fit the underlying idea of conditioning:

Unconditional means "not dependent on." Something that is unconditional always happens, regardless of anything else. For example, a product has an unconditional guarantee if you get your money back no matter why you return it -- no exceptions. In the same way, an unconditional stimulus always and from the very beginning triggers a specific unconditional response, regardless of anything else. So an unconditional stimulus is a stimulus that guarantees a particular response under [almost] all conditions.
Conditional means "depending on." Something that is conditional happens only when some conditions are met. For example, a product you can return for a full refund only if it is defective in material or workmanship is a conditional guarantee. It holds only under the condition that the product is defective in material or workmanship. (for example, the guarantee on a portable phone may be good only on condition that you haven't tried to fix it yourself). So a conditional stimulus is a stimulus that gives a particular response only under certain conditions -- as long as it reliably predicts an unconditional stimulus.

Although Schlossberg tried to make "conditional" and "unconditional" the standard terms in an influential text (Woodworth & Schlossberg, (1954), "conditioned" and "unconditioned" were too well established as the standard terms, and "conditioned" and "unconditioned" are almost always used.

In Pavlovian (classical) conditioning, the stimulus that predicts the unconditioned stimulus is called (in the original Russian) the conditional stimulus because
A. it guarantees that the subject will learn the association between the stimulus and the response
B. it is presented only when the unconditional response successfully elicits an unconditional stimulus
C. its effectiveness in triggering a new response is conditional (depends) upon pairing it with the unconditional stimulus
D. it was translated from Russian incorrectly

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(asgn3a)