For one week, a 15-second cartoon keeps appearing on TV showing an animated purple frog hopping and dancing around to some unfamiliar zyedeco music. The frog and music capture your attention, but you cannot figure out why the segment is being shown. The next week, you see a new commercial showing people eating and partying at a New Orleans‒style restaurant with waitstaff wearing the same purple frog on their shirts. A voice-over gives the name of the new restaurant-The Purple Frog-and describes specialties on the menu. You decide to try the new restaurant for yourself. Later that week, you are in the car when the zyedeco music from the first week's cartoon plays on the radio. You immediately turn to your friend and say "Hey, that's an ad for the Purple Frog Restaurant, let's go there for lunch." Although the zyedeco music was not actually played either in the commercial or at the restaurant itself, you assume that you are hearing a commercial for the restaurant because of the classical conditioning process of
A) stimulus generalization.
B) higher-order conditioning.
C) sensory preconditioning.
D) conditioned emotional responding.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Sensory preconditioning occurs when two stimuli are paired together (in this case, the zyedeco music and the purple frog animation) before one of them is later associated with a specific response or meaning (the restaurant). This leads to the first stimulus (the music) evoking the response or association related to the second stimulus (the restaurant), even though the music itself was never directly associated with the restaurant in the advertising.

For One Week, a 15-Second Cartoon Keeps Appearing on TV