After the successful extinction of your son's whining for a toy while you are shopping, you go shopping several weeks later and he begins to whine for a toy as if he is "just checking to see if the rules have changed back." This situation illustrates
A)token reinforcement.
B)spontaneous recovery.
C)stimulus generalization.
D)stimulus discrimination.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of an extinguished response after a period without exposure to the conditioned stimulus. In this scenario, the child had stopped whining for a toy after extinction, but the behavior reappeared after a few weeks, indicating spontaneous recovery. The other options are not applicable to this situation - token reinforcement involves the use of tokens (e.g., stickers, points) to reinforce behavior, stimulus generalization occurs when a response occurs in the presence of a stimulus that is similar to the original stimulus, and stimulus discrimination involves the ability to differentiate between similar stimuli and respond accordingly.

After the Successful Extinction of Your Son's Whining for a Toy