Certificate In Psychology (CPSY) Practice Exam

Infants form expectations about connections between events in their environment through what process?

1. Answered habituation.

2. Operant conditioning.

3. Classical conditioning.

4. Imitation.

The correct answer is: Classical conditioning.

Infants form expectations about connections between events in their environment primarily through classical conditioning. This process involves learning to associate one stimulus with another, allowing infants to anticipate outcomes based on previous experiences. For example, if a particular sound consistently precedes the presentation of a food item, an infant may begin to salivate upon hearing the sound, even before seeing the food. This demonstrates the infant's developing expectation that the sound is linked to receiving food. While habituation, operant conditioning, and imitation are significant processes in infant development, they operate differently from classical conditioning. Habituation refers to a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure, which helps infants discern familiar stimuli from novel ones. Operant conditioning involves learning through rewards and punishments to influence behavior, while imitation allows infants to learn by copying actions of others. Although all these processes contribute to infant learning and understanding, classical conditioning specifically highlights the way infants associate events in their environment to form expectations.