Multiple Choice
Which of the following best describes how classical conditioning is used to manipulate people's responses?
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6. Learning
Classical Conditioning
Multiple Choice
Which of the following is an example of stimulus discrimination in classical conditioning?
A
A dog salivates only when it hears a specific bell tone, but not when it hears other similar tones.
B
A dog salivates when it sees its owner, even though the owner was never paired with food.
C
A dog salivates to both a bell and a whistle after being conditioned with a bell.
D
A dog stops salivating after repeated presentations of the bell without food.
Verified step by step guidance1
Understand the concept of stimulus discrimination in classical conditioning: it occurs when an organism learns to respond to a specific conditioned stimulus (CS) but not to other similar stimuli.
Identify the conditioned stimulus (CS) in the examples provided. In classical conditioning, the CS is the stimulus that was paired with the unconditioned stimulus (US) to elicit a conditioned response (CR).
Analyze each option to see if the response is specific to one stimulus and not generalized to similar stimuli. Stimulus discrimination means the organism responds only to the original CS and not to other similar stimuli.
Recognize that the example where the dog salivates only to a specific bell tone, but not to other similar tones, demonstrates stimulus discrimination because the dog differentiates between the original CS and other similar stimuli.
Contrast this with other options: generalization (responding to similar stimuli), acquisition of a new association, or extinction (decrease in response), which are different classical conditioning phenomena.
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