Which psychological term refers to the process of learning associations between stimuli?

The term that refers to the process of learning associations between stimuli is conditioning. Conditioning involves a learning process where a previously neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, leading to a learned response. This is a fundamental concept in behavioral psychology, primarily explored through classical conditioning, where an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus that naturally evokes a response.

For example, in Pavlov's experiment with dogs, the sound of a bell (neutral stimulus) became associated with food (unconditioned stimulus), causing the dogs to salivate (conditioned response) when they heard the bell, even in the absence of food. This process highlights how organisms can learn through experience and develop new behaviors based on the associations they form.

Other terms like generalization, reinforcement, and transfer, although related to learning and behavior, do not specifically refer to the process of forming associations between stimuli. Generalization pertains to the tendency to respond similarly to similar stimuli, reinforcement focuses on increasing the likelihood of a behavior through consequences, and transfer refers to the applicability of learning from one context to another. Thus, conditioning is the most accurate term for the association aspect described in the question.