AP Psychology: Classical Conditioning — Drill 16

About This Drill

AP Psychology: Classical Conditioning — Drill 16 is a Multiple Choice practice drill covering Unit 3: Development and Learning. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.

AP Psychology practice questions on classical conditioning — test your AP exam prep on unconditioned and conditioned stimuli, acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, discrimination, and higher-order conditioning through realistic scenarios.

Questions in This Drill

1. A puppy is given a chew toy (which it enjoys) every time the owner opens a particular kitchen drawer. After several weeks, the puppy runs to the kitchen and begins wagging its tail the moment it hears the drawer slide open, even before any toy appears. Which element of this learning episode functions as the neutral stimulus prior to conditioning?
2. A researcher exposes rats to a musical tone followed immediately by a mild puff of air to the eye; rats quickly learn to blink when the tone plays alone. In a second phase, she pairs a flashing light with the already-established tone (no air puff) until the light alone elicits blinking. What procedure is being demonstrated in the second phase?
3. Pavlov conditioned a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell by repeatedly pairing the bell with food. After the response was well established, he stopped delivering food when the bell rang, and over many trials the salivation response disappeared. Several weeks later, with no further training, Pavlov rang the bell again and observed renewed salivation. Which process best accounts for the renewed salivation?
4. A developmental psychologist wants to demonstrate classical conditioning in 6-month-old infants. She plans to use a soft chime as the neutral stimulus and a gentle puff of air to the cheek as the stimulus that naturally produces a head-turn. Which of the following is most likely to prevent the infants from actually learning to turn their heads in response to the chime alone?
5. A researcher conditions three groups of dogs to salivate to a 1000 Hz tone paired with food. After acquisition, she tests salivation to tones at 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, and 1500 Hz. The average number of saliva drops for each tone is shown below: Tone frequency | Mean drops of saliva 500 Hz | 2.1 1000 Hz | 8.7 1500 Hz | 2.4 Which conclusion is most directly supported by these data?