A dog owner always says the word "coffee" to his choclate lab puppy, using no special intontion and giving no reinforcement whatsoever. Later he tries to use the work coffee as the dogs name What phenomenon would best decscrbe the dog's indfference to the word "coffee"
A blocking
B over shadowng
C extnction
D latent inhibition
I picked D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_inhibition
The phenomenon that best describes the dog's indifference to the word "coffee" is C. extinction.
To understand this, let's look at the different options:
A. Blocking: Blocking occurs when a previously learned association prevents the formation of a new association. It does not apply to this scenario since there is no mention of a previously learned association.
B. Overshadowing: Overshadowing happens when one stimulus becomes more salient and distracts attention from another stimulus during the learning process. This also does not apply to the scenario.
C. Extinction: Extinction refers to the process of gradually reducing or eliminating a learned behavior by withholding the reinforcement that previously maintained it. In this case, the dog owner has used the word "coffee" without any special intention or reinforcement. Thus, the dog has not associated the word with any rewards or significant stimuli, leading to the dog's indifference.
D. Latent inhibition: Latent inhibition is a phenomenon where prior exposure to irrelevant stimuli makes it difficult to associate that stimuli with a new meaning. However, this does not apply here since there is no mention of prior exposure to the word "coffee" having a different meaning.
Therefore, the best choice is C. extinction.