Question

Every time Dr. Turner's dog has thrown-up over the last eleven years, Dr. Turner has used Fantastik (a brand of spray cleaner) to clean up. Now, just smelling the bottle of Fantastik makes Dr. Turner nauseous. What is the conditioned response? Select one:

a. The smell of Fantastik
b. The feeling of nausea
c. The smell of the vomit
d. The feeling of cleaning

Answer 1

The conditioned response to the smell of Fantastik for Dr. Turner is the feeling of nausea. This results from classical conditioning, where the cleaner's scent is paired repeatedly with cleaning up vomit, eventually triggering nausea without the presence of vomit.

Step-by-step explanation:

In the scenario described with Dr. Turner's dog, the conditioned response in classical conditioning is b. The feeling of nausea. This occurs because Dr. Turner has been conditioned to associate the smell of Fantastik with the unpleasant task of cleaning up vomit. Over time, this repeated pairing of the cleaner's scent (conditioned stimulus) with the act of cleaning vomit (unconditioned stimulus) has led to an anticipatory response of nausea without the presence of vomit, hence the feeling of nausea has become a conditioned response.

Similar to Pavlov's drooling dogs, where the bell became a conditioned stimulus for a salivary response, here the scent of Fantastik has become a trigger for Dr. Turner's nausea.