5 Steps to a 5: AP Psychology - McGraw Hill 2021
Review Questions
8 Learning
STEP 4 Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
Directions: For each item, choose the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
1. Once Pavlov’s dogs learned to salivate to the sound of a tuning fork, the tuning fork was a(n)
(A) unconditioned stimulus
(B) neutral stimulus
(C) conditioned stimulus
(D) unconditioned response
(E) conditioned response
2. Shaping is
(A) a pattern of responses that must be made before classical conditioning is completed
(B) rewarding behaviors that get closer and closer to the desired goal behavior
(C) completing a set of behaviors in succession before a reward is given
(D) giving you chocolate pudding to increase the likelihood you will eat more carrots
(E) inhibition of new learning by previous learning
3. John loves to fish. He puts his line in the water and leaves it there until he feels a tug. On what reinforcement schedule is he rewarded?
(A) continuous reinforcement
(B) fixed ratio
(C) fixed interval
(D) variable ratio
(E) variable interval
4. Chimpanzees given tokens for performing tricks were able to put the tokens in vending machines to get grapes. The tokens acted as
(A) primary reinforcers
(B) classical conditioning
(C) secondary reinforcers
(D) negative reinforcers
(E) unconditioned reinforcers
5. Which of the following best reflects negative reinforcement?
(A) Teresa is scolded when she runs through the house yelling.
(B) Lina is not allowed to watch television until after she has finished her homework.
(C) Greg changes his math class so he doesn’t have to see his old girlfriend.
(D) Aditya is praised for having the best essay in the class.
(E) Alex takes the wrong medicine and gets violently ill afterward.
6. Watson and Rayner’s classical conditioning of “Little Albert” was helpful in explaining that
(A) some conditioned stimuli do not generalize
(B) human emotions such as fear are subject to classical conditioning
(C) drug dependency is subject to classical as well as operant conditioning
(D) small children are not as easily conditioned as older children
(E) fear of rats and rabbits are innate responses previously undiscovered
7. Jamel got very sick after eating some mushrooms on a pizza at his friend’s house. He didn’t know that he had a stomach virus at the time, blamed his illness on the mushrooms, and refused to eat them again. Which of the following is the unconditioned stimulus for his taste aversion to mushrooms?
(A) pizza
(B) stomach virus
(C) mushrooms
(D) headache
(E) aversion to mushrooms
8. If a previous experience has given your pet the expectancy that nothing it does will prevent an aversive stimulus from occurring, it will likely
(A) be motivated to seek comfort from you
(B) experience learned helplessness
(C) model the behavior of other pets in hopes of avoiding it
(D) seek out challenges like this in the future to disprove the expectation
(E) engage in random behaviors until one is successful in removing the stimulus
9. While readying to take a free-throw shot, you suddenly arrive at the answer to a chemistry problem you’d been working on several hours before. This is an example of
(A) insight
(B) backward conditioning
(C) latent learning
(D) discrimination
(E) the Premack principle
10. If the trainer conditions the pigeon to peck at a red circle and then only gives him a reward if he pecks at the green circle when both a red and green circle appear, the pigeon is demonstrating
(A) matching-to-sample generalization
(B) abstract learning
(C) intrinsic motivation
(D) insight
(E) modeling
11. Latent learning is best described by which of the following?
(A) innate responses of an organism preventing new learning and associations
(B) unconscious meaning that is attributed to new response patterns
(C) response patterns that become extinguished gradually over time
(D) delayed responses that occur when new stimuli are paired with familiar ones
(E) learning that occurs in the absence of rewards
12. Rats were more likely to learn an aversion to bright lights and noise with water if they were associated with electric shocks rather than with flavors or poisoned food. This illustrates
(A) insight
(B) preparedness
(C) extinction
(D) observational learning
(E) generalization
13. Which of the following responses is NOT learned through operant conditioning?
(A) a rat learning to press a bar to get food
(B) dogs jumping over a hurdle to avoid electric shock
(C) fish swimming to the top of the tank when a light goes on
(D) pigeons learning to turn in circles for a reward
(E) studying hard for good grades on tests
14. Spontaneous recovery refers to the
(A) reacquisition of a previously learned behavior
(B) reappearance of a previously extinguished CR after a rest period
(C) return of a behavior after punishment has ended
(D) tendency of newly acquired responses to be intermittent at first
(E) organism’s tendency to forget previously learned responses but to relearn them more quickly during a second training period
Answers and Explanations
1. C—The tuning fork is the CS and salivation is the CR. Pavlov’s dogs learned to salivate to the tuning fork.
2. B—The definition of shaping is reinforcing behaviors that get closer and closer to the goal.
3. E—Variable interval is correct. John doesn’t know when a fish will be on his line. Catching fish is unrelated to the number of times he pulls in his line but rather to when he pulls in his line.
4. C—Tokens serve as secondary reinforcers the chimps learned to respond to positively. They were connected with the primary reinforcer— grapes.
5. C—Greg transferred from the class to avoid having to see his old girlfriend. Avoidance is one type of negative reinforcement that takes away something aversive.
6. B—Watson and Raynor’s experiment with Little Albert showed emotional learning and phobias may be learned through classical conditioning.
7. B—The stomach virus is the UCS that automatically caused him to get sick. The mushrooms are the CS which he learned to avoid because of the association with the virus that caused his sickness.
8. B—Learned helplessness occurs when an organism has the experience that nothing it does will prevent an aversive stimulus from occurring.
9. A—Insight learning is the sudden appearance of a solution to a problem.
10. B—The animal showed understanding of a concept when it was able to tell the difference between the red and green circles and only pecked at the green circle to get a reward.
11. E—Latent learning is defined as learning in the absence of rewards.
12. B—The rats were biologically prepared to associate two external events, like shock and the lights and sounds together.
13. C—The fish swimming to the top of the tank when the light goes on shows classical conditioning.
14. B—Spontaneous recovery occurs when a conditioned response is extinguished but later reappears when the CS is present again without retraining.