Kaleb developed a fear of snowstorms two winters ago when his car spun off the road and hit a tree during a blizzard. As the winter progressed and he had no further accidents, Kaleb thought his fear of snowstorms had pretty well disappeared. To his surprise, this winter when the first heavy snow started to fall, he found his heart was pounding and he was trembling. This illustrates the classical conditioning process known as
A) extinction.
B) second-order conditioning.
C) stimulus generalization.
D) spontaneous recovery.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Kaleb's fear of snowstorms had appeared to have gone away, but when he was presented with the same stimulus (heavy snow), his fear response reappeared. This is an example of spontaneous recovery, which is the reappearance of a conditioned response after a pause in exposure to the conditioned stimulus.

Kaleb Developed a Fear of Snowstorms Two Winters Ago When