You decide that you are going to condition your dog, Neville, to salivate to the sound of a metronome. You give Neville a biscuit, and then a second later you sound the metronome. You do this several times, but no conditioning seems to occur. This is probably because __________.
A) the metronome was not a distinctive sound
B) the metronome should have been sounded before Neville ate the biscuit
C) you should have had a longer interval between the metronome and the biscuit
D) Pavlov found that the CS and UCS must be only seconds apart in order to condition salivation

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

In classical conditioning, the conditioned stimulus (CS) should come before the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) in order to establish an association. In this scenario, sounding the metronome after giving Neville the biscuit means that he is already experiencing the reward before the sound is heard, which is not an effective way to condition him to associate the sound with the reward. Therefore, choice B is the best explanation.

You Decide That You Are Going to Condition Your Dog