Alexis Fernandez-Preiksa

So this is called classical extinction, where you stop pairing the conditioned stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus, okay?

Now I'm gonna give you a bit more of an explanation of that so it makes a little bit more sense.

If you have like a fear-based behavior, such as a fear of dogs, okay?

So the conditioned response is fear.

The dogs is the stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus, okay?

So you've got, you see a dog, right?

You once maybe had a dog attack or a close call with a dog.

So now every time you see a dog from a distance or you hear a dog bark, you get a fear response.

Okay.

That's a learnt response.

Okay.

Now the way that you would do extinction is that you would do kind of like an exposure therapy with friendly dogs.

Okay.

And so then you start, I see a dog, it's friendly.

I don't see it attack.

I don't see it growl.

my fear goes down.

Next time I see a friendly dog, I don't see a growl, I don't see a bark, my fear goes down, my fear goes down, my fear goes down.

And then you start disassociating dog with fear.

Eventually you are able to remove the fear from the dog and then you're only going to be fearful when you actually see an aggressive dog, not all dogs, okay?