Associative Learning

Associative learning is creating new mental associations in memory, which happens when the brain forms connections between two or more stimuli. A significant stimulus, positive or negative, is associated with a neutral stimulus — and the brain learns to respond to the previously neutral stimulus. With Pavlov’s dogs, the neutral bell gets associated with food, so the bell is no longer neutral — the dogs will always respond to it positively. Other positive reinforcements can be a sound with a specific sight or learning new skills by associating visual cues with motor actions. The brain modifies neural pathways through repeated exposure to these paired stimuli. Brain areas involved are the hippocampus (helps form/consolidate new associations), amygdala (emotional associations), striatum (reward-related learning), and prefrontal cortex/PFC (complex cognitive aspects). Also see Reward Learning (a form of associative learning), Classical Conditioning (Pavlov’s dogs), Operant Conditioning (B.K. Skinner’s reward/punishment theory)