Invitation to Psychology

310 Chapter 9 Learning and Conditioning

response to ethnic or national labels if the labels

are paired with words that the child has already

learned are disagreeable, such as dumb or dirty.

Higher-order conditioning, in other words, may

contribute to the formation of prejudices.

Stimulus generalization and Discrim ination.

After a stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus

for some response, similar stimuli may produce a

similar reaction, a phenomenon known as stimulus

generalization. If you condition your patient pooch

Milo to salivate to middle C on the piano, Milo

may also salivate to D, which is one tone above

C, even though you did not pair D with food.

Stimulus generalization is described nicely by an

old English proverb: “He who hath been bitten by

a snake fears a rope.”

stimulus generaliza-
tion After conditioning,
the tendency to respond
to a stimulus that re-
sembles one involved in
the original conditioning;
in classical conditioning,
it occurs when a stimulus
that resembles the CS
elicits the CR.

known as higher-order conditioning. Say Milo has

learned to salivate to the sight of his food dish.

Now you flash a bright light before presenting the

dish. With repeated pairings of the light and the

dish, Milo may learn to salivate to the light. The

procedure for higher-order conditioning is illus-

trated in Figure 9.3.

Higher-order conditioning may explain why

some words trigger emotional responses in us—

why they can inflame us to anger or evoke warm,

sentimental feelings. When words are paired with

objects or other words that already elicit some

emotional response, they too may come to elicit

that response (Staats & Staats, 1957). A child may

learn a positive response to the word birthday

because of its association with gifts and atten-

tion. Conversely, the child may learn a negative

higher-order condi-
tioning In classical con-
ditioning, a procedure in
which a neutral stimulus
becomes a conditioned
stimulus through asso-
ciation with an already
established conditioned
stimulus.

0

4812 16

Extinction trials

(CS presented alone)

Drops of saliva to CS

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

Acquisition trials

(CS paired with US)

Drops of saliva to CS

0

14

12

10

6

4

2

246810

8

FigURE 9.2 Acquisition and Extinction of a Salivary Response

A neutral stimulus that is consistently followed by an unconditioned stimulus for salivation will become a condi-

tioned stimulus for salivation (left). But when this conditioned stimulus is then repeatedly presented without the

unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned salivary response will weaken and eventually disappear (right); it has been

extinguished.

CR

Neutral

stimulus

CS

CR

CS CS

CR

FigURE 9.3 Higher-Order Conditioning

In this illustration of higher-order conditioning, the food dish is a previously conditioned stimulus for salivation (left).

When the light, a neutral stimulus, is paired with the dish (center), the light also becomes a conditioned stimulus for

salivation (right).