You are a big fan of your grandmother's chocolate chip cookies. Just the smell of them causes you to feel hungry. One night she is making chocolate chip oatmeal almond cookies, a variation of her usual recipe. You smell the baking cookies and even though it is different than her usual cookie scent, you still suddenly feel hungry for a treat. This demonstrates the classical conditioning principle of ________.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This demonstrates the principle of stimulus generalization, where a response is elicited by stimuli that are similar but not identical to the original conditioned stimulus. In this case, the smell of a different type of cookie (similar but not identical to the original chocolate chip cookie scent) still triggers the conditioned response of hunger.

You Are a Big Fan of Your Grandmother's Chocolate Chip