You are in the grocery store and ask a clerk where the Javex is located. If the clerk asks if you are looking for bleach and you insist you are looking for Javex (a brand of bleach), you have been conditioned through a common method called ____________.
A) latent inhibition
B) sensory preconditioning
C) contextual conditioning
D) blocking

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This scenario is an example of the blocking effect in classical conditioning. The customer has already associated the brand name "Javex" with bleach, and when the clerk offers the more general term "bleach," it fails to elicit the response of locating the product because the customer has already formed a strong association between Javex and bleach. This is called blocking, where prior conditioning prevents new learning from occurring.

You Are in the Grocery Store and Ask a Clerk