Question

Irina's dog loves to go for walks, and she always puts a leash on him when they go out. The dog used to wag his tail as soon as they got outside, but now he wags his tail when she picks up the leash. The period of time in which the dog learned to associate the leash with walks is called:

A) Acquisition

B) Generalization

C) Extinction

D) Discrimination

Answer 1

The period in which Irina's dog learned to associate the leash with going on walks is called Acquisition, which is part of classical conditioning.

Step-by-step explanation:

The correct answer to the question is A) Acquisition. Acquisition is the period of time in which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus (in this case, the leash) with an unconditioned stimulus (the walk), leading to a conditioned response (tail wagging). This learning process is part of classical conditioning, a concept first observed by Ivan Pavlov in his experiments with dogs. Initially, Irina's dog did not wag his tail when it saw the leash because it was just a neutral object. Over time, however, the dog began to connect the sight of the leash (conditioned stimulus) with the event of going for a walk (unconditioned stimulus) and started to wag its tail (conditioned response). This learned behavior is a result of the acquisition phase of classical conditioning.