In his experiments, Paclov found that conditioning worked best if the CS was presented

a. just before the US
b. at the same time as the US
c. just after the US
d. instead of the US

I know that the answer is not c. I think the correct answer is a because when Pavlov experimented with the dogs, he rang a bell and then feed the dogs which made them salivate. Am I correct?

No. He rang the bell as they were eating. They learned that food and bells were at the same time. Then ringing the bells alone became the sole stimulus.

If you want to bring your kids to supper, do the same thing, but use the electic can open as the CS, and before long, you wont have to yell "supper". Just run the can opener.

Yes, you are correct! In Pavlov's experiments on classical conditioning, he found that conditioning worked best when the conditioned stimulus (CS), which was the ringing of a bell, was presented just before the unconditioned stimulus (US), which in this case was the presentation of food. This means that option a. "just before the US" is the correct answer.

In Pavlov's experiments, the dogs initially did not salivate in response to the sound of the bell alone. However, through conditioning, they eventually associated the bell with the presentation of food and began to salivate in response to the bell alone, even without the presence of food. The key aspect of conditioning was the temporal relationship between the CS and the US. By presenting the CS (bell) just before the US (food), the dogs learned to associate the two stimuli, leading to a conditioned response (salivation).

It's great that you remembered the details of Pavlov's experiments and used that knowledge to arrive at the correct answer!