Exam 3: The Nuts and Bolts of Classical Conditioning

Preexposing a subject to a CS or US

Eric and Cody bowl together on one team, and Travis and Sean bowl together on another. Each team wins 50% of their games. When Cody's team wins, it is always when Eric is playing. Sean's team, however, is as likely to win as it is to lose when Travis plays. Is Cody or Sean is going to appear to be the better bowler? How do you know?

In pigeon autoshaping, pigeons direct their behavior toward the _______, while in appetitive conditioning with rats, rats direct their behavior toward the _______.

Which statement regarding the mechanisms of conditioning and conditioning studies is false?

The typical conditioned emotional response preparation involves a CS that signals

When a bidirectional response test for conditioned inhibition is performed, the researcher

A group of rats receives 10 CS-Shock pairings, along with 5 other shocks at random intervals. A second group only receives the 10 CS-Shock pairings. Which group will show the strongest CR to the CS?

"Most objects consist of a number of features." Explain how this characteristic of objects led to the general characteristics of conditioning experiments.

Refer to the scenario below to answer the questions that follow. While you are stopped at a traffic light and listening to a new song on the radio, you are rear-ended by the driver behind you. You suffer mild whiplash and minor bruising, and you are terribly frightened by the accident. Weeks later, you still get anxious whenever you hear the song that was on the radio at the time of the accident. -You are in an elevator, and an instrument-only version of the song you heard on the radio during the car accident is playing while you ride to the tenth floor. Although you are not afraid of small spaces, heights, or elevators, you become increasingly anxious during the elevator ride. As another song begins to play you relax and realize that your anxiety in the elevator was likely a case of CS

You and your new friend Scott go for a drive and are pulled over by the police. The officer comes to your window and apologizes for scaring you, but is a friend of Scott and wanted to talk to him for a few moments. Despite not getting a ticket, you still feel anxious driving with Scott because you associate him with being pulled over by the police. This response suggests that an _______ association was formed when you were first pulled over.

In general, the most effective procedure for producing classical conditioning is the _______ conditioning procedure.

Which of the following is likely to be a conditional stimulus in humans?

You ask a new acquaintance out on a date. In your fervor to make a good impression, you discuss with her the places she most enjoys, and take her to her favorite bar for the date. You both have fun on the date, but she isn't very excited about seeing you again. From a conditioning perspective, what might have gone wrong?

On some visits to a medical clinic, a person receiving treatment for cancer receives painful and nausea-inducing IV therapy under the supervision of a nurse in a treatment room. On other visits the person meets with a physician in the treatment room to discuss test results, track progress, and deal with any problems. Based on Wagner's relative validity studies, one would predict that the stimulus that would elicit the strongest learned pain-aversion response would be the

Refer to the following description of a dog training procedure to answer the questions that follow. Clicker training, which involves pairing a metallic clicking sound with a food treat, is used in training animals. Initially, the click is meaningless, but as the number of click-food treat pairings increases, the animal (e.g., a dog) appears to develop an expectation that a click signals a food treat. Thus the dog approaches, looks at the handler, and appears excited (e.g., wagging tail, drooling, etc.). -One explanation of what is learned in classical conditioning studies is that the subject forms an association between the clicker and the food treat. Thus the training illustrates the phenomenon of _______ learning.

Describe two of the classical conditioning preparations discussed in the text (i.e., eyeblink, fear conditioning in the rat, autoshaping, appetitive conditioning in the rat, taste aversion), noting the types of stimuli and behavior involved as well as an advantage of the procedure.

Sensory preconditioning

Refer to the scenario below to answer the questions that follow. While you are stopped at a traffic light and listening to a new song on the radio, you are rear-ended by the driver behind you. You suffer mild whiplash and minor bruising, and you are terribly frightened by the accident. Weeks later, you still get anxious whenever you hear the song that was on the radio at the time of the accident. -The song playing on the radio at the time of the accident would be the

In the classic horror movie Psycho, distinctive high-pitched violin music plays before and during each vicious stabbing by the psychotic killer. Since watching the movie, you experience an increased heart rate whenever you hear the Psycho music. This phenomenon is an example of _______ conditioning.

Although current research indicates that a variety of associations can be formed in classical conditioning procedures, the most usual association is an _______ association.