The phenomenon of responding to a stimulus similar to the CS is called:

• A. Stimulus discrimination
• B. Stimulus generalization
• C. Extinction
• D. Habituation

Answer: (B)

In this topic, the idea is that once a cue has become associated with a consequence, the organism may react not only to that exact cue but also to similar ones. This is stimulus generalization: responses spread to stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimulus, with the strength of the response typically tapering as similarity decreases. For example, if a dog learns that a particular bell predicts food, it may begin to salivate to bells with similar pitch as well. This broad responsiveness helps the animal respond to related signals in the environment, though it can sometimes lead to responding to cues that aren’t truly predictive. By contrast, stimulus discrimination is when the organism learns to respond only to the exact cue and not to similar ones, extinction is the reduction of the response after the cue is presented without the outcome, and habituation is a non-associative decrease in response after repeated exposure to the same stimulus.