Which term describes the partial decrease of CR when CS presented without US, leading to extinction?

Which term describes the partial decrease of CR when CS presented without US, leading to extinction?

• A. Spontaneous Recovery
• B. Trace Conditioning
• C. Phylogenetic
• D. Respondent Extinction

Answer: (D)

Extinction in Pavlovian (classical) conditioning occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus, causing the conditioned response to gradually weaken. This gradual decline, the event where the CS no longer reliably predicts the US, is called respondent extinction. Spontaneous recovery can occur later if the response re-emerges after a rest period, but that’s not the extinction process itself. Trace conditioning is a timing variation where a gap separates the CS and US, not extinction. Phylogenetic is unrelated to this learning process.

Extinction in Pavlovian (classical) conditioning occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus, causing the conditioned response to gradually weaken. This gradual decline, the event where the CS no longer reliably predicts the US, is called respondent extinction. Spontaneous recovery can occur later if the response re-emerges after a rest period, but that’s not the extinction process itself. Trace conditioning is a timing variation where a gap separates the CS and US, not extinction. Phylogenetic is unrelated to this learning process.