/keuhn dish"euh ning/ , n. Psychol.
1. Also called operant conditioning, instrumental conditioning . a process of changing behavior by rewarding or punishing a subject each time an action is performed until the subject associates the action with pleasure or distress.
2. Also called classical conditioning, Pavlovian conditioning, respondent conditioning . a process in which a stimulus that was previously neutral, as the sound of a bell, comes to evoke a particular response, as salivation, by being repeatedly paired with another stimulus that normally evokes the response, as the taste of food.
[ 1915-20; CONDITION + -ING 1 ]