How Does A Neutral Stimulus Become A Conditioned Stimulus?

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How does a neutral stimulus become a conditioned stimulus? A neutral stimulus doesn't generate an automated response. In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus turns into a conditioned stimulus. To understand this better, I will show you an example. Let's take a rubber band for instance. I could play with the rubber band, put it on my wrist, pull it, do anything with it and it wouldn't generate any response or any reflexes. Now if I paired the rubber band with an object like a pencil, pen, etc. and I placed the rubber band on the tip of each as I have done when I was a kid getting ready to aim and hit another kid with the rubber band and it back fired and hit me in the face, that is considered a conditioned stimulus because