Elementary Psychology Exam 1 Practice

In classical conditioning, what’s true before any learning happens is that you have a neutral stimulus that initially doesn’t trigger a meaningful response, an unconditioned stimulus that naturally triggers a reflex, and the unconditioned response—the reflex itself. This trio describes the baseline setup before conditioning begins: the neutral stimulus (no response yet), the unconditioned stimulus (automatic trigger), and the unconditioned response (the reflex produced by that trigger). After learning occurs, the neutral becomes a conditioned stimulus and the reflex becomes a conditioned response, but that transformation happens only through pairing. The other descriptions would mix in elements that only arise after conditioning, so they aren’t correct for the initial setup.