Which one of the following is an incorrect pair?
2022
Which one of the following is an incorrect pair?
- A.
Kohler - Chimpanzee
- B.
Skinner - Rat
- C.
Pavlov - Pigeon
- D.
Thorndike - Cat
Attempted by 1 students.
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Correct answer: C
Historians of psychology identify several early-twentieth-century researchers with a specific experimental-subject animal that is central to their landmark learning research; a psychologist-animal pairing is correct only when it matches the animal genuinely documented in that researcher's defining work.
The table below lists each option's stated animal alongside the animal documented in that psychologist's landmark research and the learning theory it illustrates:
Psychologist | Learning theory | Documented research animal |
|---|---|---|
Wolfgang Köhler | Insight learning (Gestalt psychology) | Chimpanzee |
B. F. Skinner | Operant conditioning | Rat (and, in later studies, pigeon) |
Ivan Pavlov | Classical conditioning | Dog |
Edward Thorndike | Connectionism / law of effect | Cat |
Comparing each option's stated pairing against this documented record:
Kohler - Chimpanzee matches the documented record: Köhler's insight-learning studies were conducted with chimpanzees.
Skinner - Rat matches the documented record: Skinner's operant-conditioning studies used rats as the primary subject in the Skinner box.
Thorndike - Cat matches the documented record: Thorndike's puzzle-box studies were conducted with cats.
Pavlov - Pigeon does not match the documented record: Pavlov's classical-conditioning studies on the salivary reflex were conducted with dogs, not pigeons.
Since three of the four pairings match their documented research animal and "Pavlov - Pigeon" does not, "Pavlov - Pigeon" is the incorrect pair.