Vocabulary
In classical conditioning, what is a “neutral stimulus”?
A) A stimulus that automatically triggers an unlearned, reflex response.
B) A stimulus that initially produces no specific response other than catching attention.
C) A stimulus that always follows a behavior to decrease its frequency.
D) A stimulus that is identical to the conditioned stimulus in every way.
B – A neutral stimulus is one that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring about the desired response being tested (like a bell before it is paired with food).
Leo posts a funny video on TikTok and gets a ton of nice comments. Because it felt so good, Leo decides to post three more funny videos the very next day. What is this an example of?
Positive Reinforcement
A student gets severe food poisoning from the school's mystery meat tacos, leading to an intense nausea. For the rest of the year, just the sight or smell of tacos in the cafeteria immediately makes his stomach churn. Is the scenario above Classical or Operant?
Classical
In classical conditioning, the stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a reflexive response without any prior training is called the ______ stimulus.
A) conditioned
B) shaping
C) unconditioned
D) fixed interval
C) unconditioned
In classical conditioning experiments by Ivan Pavlov, the dog's initial salivation in response to the presentation of food is considered the:
Unconditioned Response
A toddler is taught to fear a buzzing bee by being stung whenever one lands near them. Afterward, the toddler also panics when hearing a buzzing housefly or an electric toothbrush. This reaction is best explained as:
A) Shaping
B) Stimulus Generalization
C) Extinction
D) Fixed Ratio Conditioning
B – Stimulus generalization occurs when an organism responds to a new stimulus that is similar to the original conditioned stimulus.
Mr. Davis gives his students a vocabulary quiz every single Friday. On Monday through Wednesday, most students barely open their notes. But by Thursday night, everyone is panicking and cramming for the test. What does this display?
Fixed Interval
Every time Maya uses her electric pressure cooker, it emits a distinct double beep right before releasing an outburst of steam. The first few times, the sudden hiss of steam made her startle. Now after using it for a month, Maya flinches as soon as she hears the double beep even before the steam releases. Is the scenario above Classical or Operant?
Classical
When an organism learns to produce a conditioned response only to a specific stimulus and not to similar alternative stimuli, it is demonstrating stimulus ______.
Discrimination
True or False: In classical conditioning, an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is something that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any prior learning or training.
True
An office worker receives a paycheck deposited into their bank account every two weeks, regardless of how many emails they send or how productive they are during that period. What schedule of reinforcement is this, and what behavioral pattern does it typically produce?
A) Variable Ratio; high and steady response rate with no pauses.
B) Fixed Ratio; a rapid drop in productivity immediately after reinforcement.
C) Fixed Interval; a “scalloped” response pattern where effort increases as the predictable deadline approaches.
D) Variable Interval; slow, erratic responding because the time is unpredictable.
C – A fixed interval schedule reinforces the first response after a set amount of time. Organisms typically learn to “wait” and then accelerate their responding right before the time interval expires (creating a scalloped curve).
Maya used to wake up to a specific pop song as her alarm every morning. A year later, she has a totally different alarm sound. However, whenever she hears her old alarm sound playing on the radio in a friend's car, she instantly feels a spike of stress and a sinking stomach, even though she doesn't have to go to school. What is this an example of?
Classical Conditioning
Leo hates sitting in morning traffic. One day, he decides to leave his house 20 minutes earlier than usual. As a result, he completely misses the heavy traffic and arrives at work relaxed. Because of this, Leo now habitually leaves 20 minutes early every single morning. Classical or Operant
Operant
The schedule of reinforcement in which a response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses—producing high, steady response rates—is a variable- _________ schedule.
Ratio
A neutral stimulus naturally causes a specific response before learning takes place.
False
A dog is placed in a shuttle box and hears a tone, followed 5 seconds later by a mild electric shock. The dog quickly learns to jump over the barrier as soon as the tone sounds, completely preventing the shock. According to Mowrer's Two-Factor Theory, what maintains this avoidance behavior over time, even though the shock never happens anymore?
Positive reinforcement via primary rewards like food.
Negative reinforcement via the reduction of conditioned anxiety.
Punishment by application, which suppresses the baseline behavior.
Shaping through successive approximations of the jumping motion.
2 – Avoidance learning is maintained by negative reinforcement. The tone becomes a conditioned stimulus for fear; jumping to escape the tone removes that fear, which reinforces the jumping behavior.
Liam loves drawing cool video game characters just for fun. To encourage him, his parents start giving him $5 for every drawing he finishes. After a month, his parents stopped paying him. Surprisingly, Liam stops drawing almost entirely, even though he used to do it for hours just because he loved it. What is this an example of?
Extinction
A local coffee shop introduced a new system every time customers buy a coffee, they scan an app card that randomly awards a free pastry 20% of the time. Over time, customers began visiting the coffee shop far more frequently. Additionally, regular customers noticed that just hearing the "chime" of the app causes their mouth to water. Classical and Operant
Classical and Operant
The phenomenon where a conditioned response abruptly appears after a delay following extinction, without additional pairing trials, is called spontaneous _________.
Recovery
Punishment is used to decrease the chance of behavior happening again.
True
A dog trainer is teaching a complex trick: turning on a light, opening a cabinet door, retrieving a ball, and bringing it back. The trainer first teaches the dog to retrieve the ball from an open cabinet, then adds opening the door, and finally adds turning on the light. This specific teaching method is known as:
Stimulus discrimination training using forward chaining.
Backward chaining, which ensures the final response is reinforced first.
Shaping by differential reinforcement of successive approximations.
Concurrent schedule operant chaining.
2 – This is an example of backward chaining, where the last step of a sequence is taught and reinforced first, and preceding steps are added one by one moving backward, ensuring the animal is always working toward the primary reinforcement at the end of the chain.
Chloe fails her driver's license test three times in a row, making mistakes on parallel parking each time. Even though the testing center gets a brand-new instructor, wider parking spaces, and an easier grading system, Chloe refuses to take the test a fourth time, convinced she is simply "destined to fail at driving." What kind of conditioning does this display?
Operant Conditioning
Whenever Sarah's teenage son leaves his dirty dishes in the living room, Sarah stops talking to him and ignores his questions for the rest of the evening. Her son finds the silent treatment extremely uncomfortable. Over the course of a few weeks, her son completely stops leaving dirty dishes in the living room. Classical or Operant?
Learning a behavior to stop an ongoing, unpleasant stimulus that is already happening is known as ____________ learning.
A) unconditioned
B) extinction
C) discrimination
D) escape
D) escape
Discrimination means responding the same way to every similar stimulus.
False