Question

Darnell was the subject for his in-class demonstration on classical conditioning. His teacher read through a list of random words, but each time she said the word, "pizza," she squirted him in the face with a water bottle, which caused him to flinch. When talking about pizza later outside of class, he didn't flinch, but then two days later, his friend from class said, "Hey Darnell, pizza!" and he flinched with fear. This is an example of ________.

Question 41 options:
a)
neutral stimulus
b)
classical conditioning
c)
spontaneous recovery
d)
an experimental confederate

Answer 1

The correct answer is spontaneous recovery, as Darnell flinched to the word 'pizza' due to a previously learned response that re-emerged after a period of time without exposure to the conditioned stimulus.

Step-by-step explanation:

The situation you've described with Darnell flinching when his friend mentioned "pizza" two days after the in-class demonstration is an example of spontaneous recovery in classical conditioning. During the class demonstration, the word "pizza" became a conditioned stimulus that elicited a flinch, which is a conditioned response. Spontaneous recovery occurs when an extinguished conditioned response reappears after a pause in exposure to the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus being presented again. This phenomenon illustrates that the learned association was not forgotten but had merely weakened over time.