In Psychologist Robert Rescorla's Classical Conditioning Experiment, One Group of Rats

question 183

Multiple Choice

In psychologist Robert Rescorla's classical conditioning experiment, one group of rats experienced a tone just before each of 20 shocks. A second group of rats experienced the same number of tone-shock pairings, plus an additional 20 shocks with no tone. Rescorla found that the rats in the first group showed a much stronger conditioned fear response than the rats in the second group. How did Rescorla explain this finding?

• A) It was an example of the partial reinforcement effect.
• B) The second group of rats experienced spontaneous recovery.
• C) The tone was a more reliable predictor of the shock for the first group of rats.
• D) The interval between the tone and the shock was too great for the second group of rats to acquire a strong conditioned response (CR).

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