Which process reduces the strength of a conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus repeatedly?

• A. Habituation
• B. Extinction
• C. Spontaneous recovery
• D. Stimulus generalization

Answer: (B)

Extinction is the process in classical conditioning where the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus repeatedly, causing the conditioned response to weaken and eventually disappear. This happens because the CS no longer signals the UCS, so the learned association diminishes. Importantly, extinction doesn’t erase the original learning entirely; the association can re-emerge later in phenomena like spontaneous recovery or after retraining (reacquisition).

Habituation would be a non-associative decrease in response to a repeated, neutral stimulus. Spontaneous recovery is the return of an extinguished response after a break in testing. Stimulus generalization is when similar stimuli evoke the same conditioned response due to shared features with the original CS.