SparkNotes: Learning and Conditioning: Sample Quiz Questions

Sample Quiz Questions

1. What kind of reinforcement should you use if you want to a response to last without reinforcement long after it’s been learned through operant conditioning?

(A) Continuous

(B) Intermittent

(D) Neither A nor B

2. What is the tendency to respond to a new stimulus as if it’s the original conditioned stimulus?

(A) Stimulus discrimination

(B) Stimulus generalization

(D) Spontaneous recovery

3. A student sometimes got A’s on his midterm exams last year when he used his green pen to write the exams. Now he always takes his lucky green pens to exams. How did the student’s superstitious behavior arise?

(A) Observational learning

(B) Classical conditioning

(D) None of the above

4. A scalloped response pattern, in which responses are slow at the beginning of a time period and then faster just before reinforcement happens, is typical of which type of reinforcement schedule?

(A) Fixed ratio

(B) Variable ratio

(D) Variable interval

5. What is the procedure called in which reinforcement is used to guide a response closer and closer to a desired response?

(A) Stimulus discrimination

(B) Stimulus generalization

(D) Shaping

6. Classical conditioning usually works best if which of the following occurs?

(A) The conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented just after the unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

(B) The CS is presented just before the UCS

(D) All of the above are equally effective

7. Which of the following terms means the tendency for conditioning to be limited by natural instincts?

(A) Instinctive drift

(B) Innate conditioning

(D) Classical conditioning

8. With respect to taste aversion, which of the following is true?

(A) If taste is paired with other unconditioned stimuli, conditioning doesn’t occur

(B) Nausea paired with most other conditioned stimuli doesn’t produce aversion to those stimuli

(C) The pairing of taste and nausea produces conditioning even when there is a delay of several hours between the conditioned stimulus of the taste and the unconditioned stimulus of nausea

(D) All of the above

9. In operant conditioning, what is the tendency for a response to happen only when a particular stimulus is present?

(A) Stimulus generalization

(B) Shaping

(D) Stimulus discrimination

10. Students get a grade for a quiz that’s given once a week. What is this an example of?

(A) Fixed-ratio reinforcement schedule

(B) Variable-ratio reinforcement schedule

(D) Variable-interval reinforcement schedule