Week 6 — Quiz (auto-graded) · Learning

Course: Introduction to Psychology (PSYC 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Bennett
Objective tested: Objective 5 — the major models of learning (classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning) applied to everyday behavior.
Points: 10 (1 each) · Assignment group: Quizzes (15% of grade) · Due: end of Module 6.

This is the human-readable quiz with its vetted answer key and feedback. The import-ready Classic QTI is in F-quiz-week-06-qti.xml; the reusable item-bank entries and the Canvas placement block are at the bottom of this file.

Blueprint

No trick questions; distractors target the Week 6 misconceptions named in the lecture outline.

Questions, key, and feedback

Q1 (MC). A child gets a painful vaccination at the doctor's office. After a few such visits, the child starts to cry the moment they see the white doctor's coat, before anything else happens. In this example, the white coat is the —
- A. unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
- B. conditioned stimulus (CS) ✅
- C. unconditioned response (UCR)
- D. conditioned response (CR)
Feedback: The white coat started neutral and only triggers crying after being paired with the painful shot — that makes it the conditioned stimulus (CS). The shot (which causes pain automatically) is the UCS; crying is the response.

Q2 (MC). Pavlov's dogs salivated automatically the moment food touched their tongues, before any training. This automatic, unlearned salivation to the food is the —
- A. conditioned stimulus (CS)
- B. conditioned response (CR)
- C. unconditioned response (UCR) ✅
- D. neutral stimulus
Feedback: The unconditioned response (UCR) is the automatic, unlearned reaction to the UCS (food). Salivating to the bell later would be the conditioned response; the food itself is the UCS.

Q3 (Multiple answer — select all that apply). Which of the following are examples of a consequence that INCREASES a behavior (that is, reinforcement)?
- A. Adding praise after a behavior, and the behavior happens more often ✅
- B. Adding a parking ticket after illegal parking, and it happens less often
- C. Removing an annoying alarm by getting up, and getting up on time happens more often ✅
- D. Taking away a child's tablet after misbehavior, and the misbehavior happens less often
Feedback: Reinforcement always increases a behavior — whether you add something pleasant (positive reinforcement, A) or remove something aversive (negative reinforcement, C). B and D are punishment — they decrease a behavior — so they don't belong here.

Q4 (MC). A worker is given a cash bonus each time they hit their sales target, and their selling effort goes up. Adding the bonus to increase the behavior is an example of —
- A. positive reinforcement ✅
- B. negative reinforcement
- C. positive punishment
- D. negative punishment
Feedback: The behavior increased, so it's reinforcement; the bonus was added, so it's positive. Positive reinforcement. (Negative reinforcement would remove something aversive instead.)

Q5 (MC). A driver finds the car's seatbelt chime annoying. They start buckling up immediately to make the chime stop, and over time they buckle up faster and faster. The increase in buckling is best explained as —
- A. positive punishment
- B. negative punishment
- C. negative reinforcement ✅
- D. extinction
Feedback: This is the classic trap. The behavior (buckling) goes up, so it must be reinforcement, not punishment — apply the test: did the behavior increase? Yes. And the increase comes from removing something aversive (the chime), which makes it negative reinforcement.

Q6 (Matching). Match each operant consequence to its definition.
| Consequence | Correct definition |
|---|---|
| Positive reinforcement | Add a pleasant stimulus to increase a behavior |
| Negative reinforcement | Remove an aversive stimulus to increase a behavior |
| Positive punishment | Add an aversive stimulus to decrease a behavior |
| Negative punishment | Remove a pleasant stimulus to decrease a behavior |
Feedback: Two questions decode every cell: did the behavior go up (reinforcement) or down (punishment), and was a stimulus added (positive) or removed (negative)? Reinforcement always increases; punishment always decreases; positive/negative is add vs. remove — never good vs. bad.

Q7 (MC). A slot machine pays out after an unpredictable number of pulls, which is why players keep going the longest and the behavior is so resistant to extinction. This is an example of which schedule of reinforcement?
- A. fixed-ratio
- B. variable-ratio ✅
- C. fixed-interval
- D. variable-interval
Feedback: Reinforcement here depends on the number of responses (a ratio) and is unpredictable (variable) → variable-ratio, the schedule that drives the highest, most persistent responding (slot machines, phone notifications).

Q8 (True / False). "Negative reinforcement is just another term for punishment."
- True
- False ✅
Feedback: False. Negative reinforcement INCREASES a behavior by removing something unpleasant (take aspirin → headache stops → you take aspirin more often). Punishment DECREASES a behavior. They do opposite jobs — this is the most common mix-up in the unit.

Q9 (MC). In Bandura's Bobo doll study, children who watched an adult model behave aggressively toward the doll later imitated that aggression, even though the children themselves received no reward for doing so. This best demonstrates —
- A. classical conditioning
- B. negative reinforcement
- C. observational learning ✅
- D. spontaneous recovery
Feedback: The children learned by watching a model and imitating, with no direct reinforcement to themselves — that is observational learning. (Watching the model get rewarded or punished is vicarious reinforcement.)

Q10 (MC). Which statement best captures the difference between classical and operant conditioning?
- A. Classical conditioning shapes voluntary behavior with consequences; operant conditioning is about reflexes.
- B. Classical conditioning links a signal to an involuntary, reflexive response; operant conditioning shapes voluntary behavior through its consequences. ✅
- C. Classical conditioning requires a model to imitate; operant conditioning does not.
- D. There is no real difference; the two terms mean the same thing.
Feedback: Classical conditioning is about involuntary, reflexive responses to a signal (you don't choose to salivate). Operant conditioning is about voluntary behavior shaped by its consequences (you choose to press the lever for a reward). Reflex vs. choice; signal vs. consequence.

Answer key (quick reference)

Quality gate (self-checked): each single-answer item has exactly one correct option; the multiple-answer item (Q3) lists both reinforcement examples (A and C) and excludes the two punishment examples; the matching item pairs the four operant consequences to four distinct definitions; no item asserts a fact outside the Week 6 course definitions. No computation in this quiz, so no arithmetic to mis-key.

Item-bank entries (for variants + the midterm/final)

All ten items are tagged course=PSYC1 · week=6 · objective=5 · topic=learning and deposited in Item Bank: Week 6 — Learning. The midterm (Week 8) and the per-term variant updates draw fresh items from this bank. (Tags: q1 classical-cs, q2 classical-ucr, q3 reinforcement-increases, q4 positive-vs-negative-reinforcement, q5 negreinf-not-punishment, q6 operant-four-match, q7 schedule-variable-ratio, q8 negreinf-vs-punishment-tf, q9 observational-bobo, q10 classical-vs-operant.)

Canvas placement block

canvas_object   = Quizzes::Quiz
title           = "Week 6 Quiz — Learning"
assignment_group = "Quizzes"
points_possible = 10
grading_type    = points
due_offset_days = 6        # 6 days after module start
published       = true
shuffle_answers = true
provenance      = "~ Prof. Bennett's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"