Five-year-old Samantha is watching a storm from her window. A huge bolt of lightning is followed bya tremendous thunderclap. Sta
rtled, Samantha jumps at the noise. This happens several times. As the storm moves farther away, Samantha jumps at the sight of a lightning bolt but hears the thunder after her jump! In this example, the unconditioned stimulus is the_________ and the conditioned stimulus is the _________.a. jumping; lightning b. thunder; jumping
c. thunder; lightning
d. lightning; thunder
Conditioned stimulus is described as the outcome of a learned behavior that primarily functions to trigger the specific conditioned response while the unconditioned stimulus is characterized as the naturally occurring stimulus that evokes a response automatically without any prior learning.
In the given example, the 'thunder' would be the unconditioned stimulus as it evokes a natural and unconditioned response from Samantha i.e. 'her jumping' while the 'lightning' exemplifies the 'conditioned stimulus' as it evokes a learned response which she has learnt from her previous experience and displayed even before hearing the thunder actually. It implies that her latter behavior was a learned response. Thus, <u>option C</u> is the correct answer.
