Question

Pamela went shopping with her baby in a mall when she bumped into her friend Carol. Carol was wearing a shiny, jingling bracelet, much like the one Pamela wore. When Carol reached down to kiss Pamela’s baby on the forehead, her bracelet jingled, and the baby started making suckling noises.

CS - Jingling of Carol's bracelet
US- Pamela - Mom wears a similar bracelets and gives the baby food
CR- Sucking noises when hearing the bracelet
UR- sucking noises when being fed

Every day, Dorothy feeds her cat wet cat food. She uses the electric can opener each time to open the can. The cat gets visibly excited at this sound because it loves the wet food. One day, while preparing lunch for herself, Dorothy took out a can of tuna to make tuna sandwiches. As she opened the can with the electric can opener, the cat, excited at the sound, started purring in anticipation. (4 points)

A. CS
B. US
C. CR
D. UR

Answer 1

The described scenarios exemplify classical conditioning where a conditioned stimulus (bracelet jingling, can opener sound) triggers a conditioned response (suckling noises, purring) due to the association with an unconditioned stimulus (being fed, cat food).

Step-by-step explanation:

Conditioned stimulus:

The scenario described is an example of classical conditioning, a learning process first described by Ivan Pavlov. In both cases mentioned, we can identify the conditioned stimulus (CS), the unconditioned stimulus (US), the conditioned response (CR), and the unconditioned response (UR). For Pamela’s baby, the CS is the jingling sound of Carol’s bracelet, similar to Pamela’s, which the baby has learned to associate with being fed. The US, in this case, is being fed by Pamela. The CR is the suckling noises made by the baby upon hearing the jingle, anticipating being fed. Finally, the UR (unconditioned response) is the baby’s suckling when actually being fed.

In the case of Dorothy’s cat, the electric can opener’s sound when preparing cat food is the CS, leading to the CR of the cat purring in anticipation of food. The US is the cat food itself, and the UR is the excitement and purring the cat exhibits when it actually receives the food.