Question

After a painful experience at one dentist's office, teresa's mother takes teresa to a different dentist, who takes great care to make her visits painless. teresa is anxious at first, but after a few visits, teresa gradually becomes less resistant about going to the new dentist. teresa's change in behavior can probably best be explained in terms of _____. but then teresa doesn't go to see the dentist again until three years later. on her first visit to the painless dentist after that time interval, she is anxious once again, even though she had not been anxious in her previous visits. the return of this response after it had previously disappeared is known as _____.

Answer 1

After a painful experience at one dentist's office, Teresa's mother takes Teresa to a different dentist, who takes great care to make her visits painless. Teresa is anxious at first, but after a few visits, Teresa gradually becomes less resistant about going to the new dentist. Teresa's change in behavior can probably best be explained in terms of extinction but then teresa doesn't go to see the dentist again until three years later. On her first visit to the painless dentist after that time interval, she is anxious once again, even though she had not been anxious in her previous visits. The return of this response after it had previously disappeared is known as spontaneous recovery.

Answer 2

The correct answers are: extinction; spontaneous recovery

Answer 1: Teresa's change in behavior can probably best be explained in terms of extinction. 

According to the theory of classical conditioning, extinction refers to the process whereby a previously learned behavior disappears when reinforcement stops occurring. In this instance, Teresa was previously anxious about dentist visits due to the pain she experienced. However, when her mother took her to a new dentist who took care to make her visits painless, Teresa gradually becomes less resistant about going to the new dentist. This demonstrates the process of extinction, because Teresa's  previously learned fear of visiting the dentist gradually disappeared when reinforcement of the fear stopped occurring. 

Answer 2: The correct answer is spontaneous recovery.

According to the theory of classical conditioning, spontaneous recovery (SR) refers to the reappearance of a conditioned or learned response after a period of time has elapsed. In other words, SR refers to when an extinct behavior suddenly reemerges. In this instance, Teresa's conditioned fear response became extinct after she visited the second dentist, however, after a period of three years where she didn't visit a dentist, her fear of the dentist reemerged, thus demonstrating the process of SR.