Question

A dog learns to salivate at the sound of a soft buzzer, but not at the sound of a loud buzzer. After

training, the dog is presented with buzzers of various volumes. You predict that the dog will salivate
most in response to a buzzer that is _______.
a. identical to the CS+
b. slightly softer than the CS+
c. slightly louder than the CS+
d. slightly louder than the CS-

Answer 1

The dog will most likely salivate in response to a buzzer volume that is identical to the CS+, as it is the stimulus the dog associated with food during classical conditioning.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question refers to classical conditioning, a type of learning where a previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit a reflexive response after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus that naturally elicits that response. In the specific scenario of the dog salivating to the sound of a buzzer, the buzzer sounds of different volumes could be seen as variations of the conditioned stimulus (CS).

Based on classical conditioning principles, the dog will salivate most in response to a buzzer that is identical to the CS+ that it was trained with, as it most closely matches the stimulus the dog learned to associate with food.