Conditioned emotional response

The term conditioned emotional response (CER) can refer to a specific learned behavior or a procedure commonly used in classical or Pavlovian conditioning research. It may also be called "conditioned suppression" or "conditioned fear response (CFR)." It is an "emotional response" that results from classical conditioning, usually from the association of a relatively neutral stimulus with a painful or fear-inducing unconditional stimulus. As a result, the formerly neutral stimulus elicits fear. For example, if seeing a dog (a neutral stimulus) is paired with the pain of being bitten by the dog (unconditioned stimulus), seeing a dog may become a conditioned stimulus that elicits fear (conditioned response).