AP psy topic 4

Edward L. Thorndike argued that responses that lead to satisfying outcomes are more likely to be repeated, and that responses followed by unpleasant outcomes are less likely to be repeated. This became known as the law of

• reinforcement

• associations

• punishment

• effect

• outcomes

Elizabeth picks up the clothes from her bedroom floor and puts them away to avoid her mother’s repeated nagging. Elizabeth’s behavior is being influenced by

• classical conditioning

• positive reinforcement

• negative reinforcement

• 
  extinction

• punishment

Emiko’s cat often meows for food. Emiko decides to eliminate the behavior by feeding the cat only when it does not meow. Over the next few weeks, she sometimes ignores the cat when it meows. Other times, she feeds the cat when it meows. Which of the following is the most reasonable prediction to make about the cat’s meowing for food?

• It will disappear due to extinction.

• It will decrease overall but not extinguish.

• It will remain unchanged due to a continuous schedule of reinforcement.

• It will increase due to a variable schedule of reinforcement.

• 
  It will increase due to positive punishment.

  
  

Xander can no longer stomach the taste of sushi after he vomited from eating a spoiled serving of it. However, the appearance of sushi does not make him sick. Which of the following best accounts for why Xander becomes sick upon tasting sushi but not seeing sushi?

• Latent learning, because sushi acts as a reinforcer.

• Insight learning, because sushi acts as a reinforcer.

• Social learning, because Xander is probably imitating someone else who also got sick from the sushi.

• Biological predisposition, because this example illustrates taste aversion.

• Negative punishment, because this example illustrates taste aversion.

Four-year-old Scott fell down the stairs at his grandmother’s house. Although he was not badly hurt, he was very frightened. Now, whenever his parents mention visiting his grandmother’s house, he feels anxious and fearful. In classical conditioning terms, what are the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) in the scenario, respectively?

• Grandmother’s house; fear

• Grandmother’s house; falling

• Fear; grandmother’s house

• Falling; anxiety

• Anxiety; fear

In a classic study, a group of rats learned to run through a maze to obtain food, and another group of rats explored the maze without receiving food. Some time later, the researcher compared the two groups of rats to determine if both groups would find the food at the end of the maze. According to the researcher, the untrained rats found the food at the end of the maze as quickly as the trained rats as a result of

• latent learning

• observational learning

• 
  avoidance learning

• counterconditioning

• aversive conditioning

In classical conditioning, stimulus generalization occurs when an organism responds

• to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus

• to stimuli that are similar to the unconditioned stimulus

  
  

• C

  to the conditioned stimulus the same way as to the unconditioned stimulus

• with different types of responses to neutral stimuli

• with different types of responses to the unconditioned stimulus

A monkey’s choosing a circle from an array of geometric shapes in order to be rewarded with a banana is an example of

• stimulus habituation

• 
  stimulus discrimination

• positive transference

• disinhibition

• latent learning

A person eats a hamburger at a restaurant and develops a very bad stomachache after finishing eating. As a result of the sudden illness, the person cannot eat hamburgers anymore. Just thinking about them makes the person feel sick to the stomach. In this scenario, the thought of a hamburger is

• an unconditioned stimulus

• an unconditioned response

• a conditioned stimulus

• a conditioned response

• a negative reinforcer

A rat always completes a maze successfully but is only rewarded every third trial. The rat is being rewarded using which of the following reinforcement schedules?

• Fixed-interval

• Fixed-ratio

• 
  Variable-ratio

• Variable-interval

• Continuous