The Relationship between Classical Conditioning and Generalization

14 goats received trials of classical conditioning. Among these trials 16 were training trials with 500 msec light for CS and 150 msec electric shock for UCS; two were test trials with 500 msec light accompanied with 30 msec electric shock, and two were 500 msec light alone for test stimuli. If the response potential were considered an index of response Strength, a rather distinctive generalization gradient is obtained. The response potential decreases as the difference between the training stimulus and the test stimulus increases. The result of this experiment illustrates a fact that classical conditioning can be regarded as a special case of generalization. Asychronic CS and UCS in the classical conditioning corresponds to the training stimulus in the process of generalization whereas CS plus a fraction of UCS in the classical procedure is equal to the test stimulus of generalization.