Question

Bill always starts his day with a cup of strong coffee. Bill stayed overnight at his mother's home and she made him a cup of coffee when he got up. Later, he was surprised to discover that his mother's coffee was decaffeinated, because he had felt more alert after drinking the coffee. In this example, what is the CS and CR?

Answer 1

Answer:

The CS would be the decaffeinated coffee.

The CR would be feeling more alert (after drinking it)

Explanation:

Conditioning learning is an style of learning where a conditioned stimulus is associated with an unconditioned stimulus and they produce a conditioned behavioral response.

(1) In this learning, at first, the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is an stimulus that produces a response by itself in a natural way, thus, the UCS acts as a naturally occurring trigger that leads to a natural response.

(2) This natural response that the UCS triggers is called the unconditioned response (UCR), thus, the UCR is a natural response to the unconditioned stimulus.

(3) The conditioned stimulus (CS) is what comes next in the process, and this is an stimulus  that does not create a response on its own but when it's paired with the UCS, and after some repetitions, it creates a response which is learned. Thus, the CS is an stimulus that becomes able to produce a learned response by being paired with the original unconditioned stimulus.

(4) This conditionally learned response that was learned because of said pairing is called conditional response (CR), thus the CR is a learned response to a conditioned stimulus.

(5) We said in paragraph (3) that the conditioned stimulus did not create a response on its own but once it's paired with the UCS it creates a learned behavior.

Bill always starts his day with a cup of strong coffee (which by itself makes him feel more alert). One day, her mom make him a cup of coffee in the morning but he was surprised to find out it was decaffeinated since he had felt more alert after drinking it anyway.

The strong coffee would be the Unconditioned stimulus which by itself triggers the response of feeling more alert after drinking it(Unconditioned response).

Bill has paired the act of having a cup of coffee with this sensation.

The CS is the stimulus that doesn't create a response on its own, in this example the CS would be the decaffeinated coffee which by itself doesn't have the effects that a regular coffee has.

However, since Robert has associated the cup of coffee with feeling alert he felt that way when he had this other coffee, thus, the CR in this case would be feeling alert after having the cup of coffee (in this case, decaffeinated)