Pavlov placed food in the mouths of the dogs, and they began to salivate. Pavlov's student noticed that after a few days the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the student's footsteps. The salivation to the sound of the footsteps was a __________.
A) primary reinforcer
B) positive reinforcer
C) conditioned response
D) secondary reinforcer

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The salivation to the sound of the footsteps is a conditioned response, as it is a learned response to a previously neutral stimulus (the sound of the footsteps). The food was the unconditioned stimulus that naturally elicited the unconditioned response of salivation, but with repeated pairing of the sound of the footsteps and the presentation of food, the dogs learned to associate the sound with the food and began to salivate at the sound alone. Primary and secondary reinforcers are types of stimuli that increase the likelihood of a behavior, while positive reinforcement involves the addition of a desirable stimulus after a behavior to increase its frequency. These concepts are not directly applicable to Pavlov's classical conditioning experiment.

Pavlov Placed Food in the Mouths of the Dogs, and They