learn bases

Hi henryprofessor,

can you answer at least three posted questions? thank you

  • 1. Some recent work suggests that not all CS-alone trials will contribute to extinction. What cautions for clinicians and counselors are implicit in these findings?

  • 2. Lots of people think that latent inhibition strategies will allow the clinical psychology and counseling fields to truly enter the world of prevention. What do you think about this?
  • 3. Work through this puzzle about Peg.
  • Peg is afraid to drive. She has had many auto accidents and driving makes her nervous. However, she still drives, though nervously. Today she and a brand new co-worker need to get to a meeting at a distant location. The most efficient way to get there is to drive. She decides she will drive her car. Her new co-worker asks her for a ride. Reluctantly, Peg says ‘yes’. Just as they start out, as bad luck would have it, they have a car accident, contributing to Peg’s fear of driving. Do you expect Peg to have some new, unpleasant reaction to her new co-worker as well? Why or why not? Use classical conditioning principles to justify your answer.
  • 4. Work through this puzzle about Josh.
  • Josh ate something new at the cafeteria one day last month. Seeing navy bean soup on the menu, he decided to try it and afterward said “That’s OK”. The next day, and for the next several days he was sick with the flu. Today, in the cafeteria with Alice , he sees navy bean soup on the menu and says “Ugh, I hate that stuff”.
    (a) Using classical conditioning, generate a hypothesis for why Josh now dislikes navy bean soup?
    (b) To what stimulus arrangement between navy been soup and the flu has Josh been exposed?
    (c) Tim also ate navy bean soup when Josh did and the next day he got sick too (no, the soup was not contaminated), but Tim does not say he hates the soup today. What might account (in terms of classical conditioning principles) for the difference between Tim’s and Josh’s reaction to navy bean soup.
  • 5. Work through this puzzle about Sally.
  • Sally has recently moved to an area where wind storms are common. They are new to her as wind storms were not common where she previously lived. However, she is not afraid of them. There was a big wind storm yesterday and the power in Sally’s house went out. At one point, she took a flashlight and went down to the basement to check on things. In the protected staircase she could only hear the dim sound of the wind. Otherwise, things were quiet. Suddenly, she heard the squeak of a mouse which, under the circumstances, seemed quite loud. In the dark she couldn’t see that broken step she’d been meaning to fix. She tripped and fell, and actually hurt herself quite badly. After this, she noticed a fear of mice.

    (a) Using principles about factors that influence the effectiveness of respondent conditioning, generate at lease one hypothesis about why Sally is now afraid of mice and not wind storms.

    (b) What would need to happen for Sally to overcome her fear of mice?

  • 6.Work through this puzzle about Max and Tim.
  • Max just took a new job. His new job is on the 48th floor of a large office building. Needless to say, he must take the elevator to get to his office. This is not unusual for Max, as his previous job was located on the 31st floor of an office building and he always took the elevator to get to his office there as well. On the day he started his new job, Tim started a job in the office next door. Prior to taking this job, Tim lived and worked only in a town where there are short buildings and no elevators. On the morning of their first day of work, Max and Tim saw each other in the lobby of their office building and got on the elevator together. Unfortunately, there was a minor elevator accident. The elevator lurched a bit and both Max and Tim were bumped, mildly against the walls of the elevator.

    (a) Who do you think is more likely to leave the situation with some fear of elevators?

    (b) What principle describing a factor that influences the effectiveness of respondent conditioning likely “protected” one of them from developing a fear?

  • 7. Do you think you’ve observed an example of sensory preconditioning?
  • 8. Give an example, real or fictional, of latent inhibition.
  • 9. Do you think you’ve encountered a personal experience with overshadowing?