If dinner is always served at 6:00, the time (6:00) reliably predicts dinner, leading to feelings of hunger just before. However, if dinner is served at unpredictable times, 6:00 does not reliably predict the meal and is less likely to be associated with dinner.

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Organisms learn to predict the occurrence of an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) from a conditioned stimulus (CS). Robert Rescorla demonstrated that classical conditioning involves this predictive relationship, where the CS reliably signals that the UCS is coming.

Prediction in Classical Conditioning

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

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