What type of conditioning involves the association of stimuli that occur together in time or space?

The type of conditioning that involves the association of stimuli occurring together in time or space is classical conditioning. In this learning process, an animal or individual learns to associate a neutral stimulus with a significant stimulus that produces a response. An example of this is the famous experiment by Ivan Pavlov, where dogs learned to associate the sound of a bell (the neutral stimulus) with food (the significant stimulus), leading them to salivate upon hearing the bell, even when food was not present.

Classical conditioning emphasizes the relationship between stimuli rather than the responses that follow, focusing on how an immediate stimulus can lead to the anticipation of another response, often in a reflexive manner. This is distinctly different from operant conditioning, where behavior is influenced by the consequences that follow it, such as rewards or punishments. Reflective and instinctual conditioning are not widely recognized terms in behavioral psychology, and thus they do not accurately reflect the established principles of stimulus association.