Question

What was a neutral stimulus in Watson’s Little Albert Experiment?

A. Loud clanging noise of metal bars
B. Exposure to a furry rat
C. A bell ringing
D. The smell of food

Answer 1

Answer:

John B.Watson performed the Little Albert experiment. It was a controlled experiment which showed the empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans.  He followed Pavlov methods but used exposure to furry rat as a neutral stimulus.

He allowed a child to play with a rat; whenever the child approached the rat, Watson rang the steel bars making the child fear. Next, he allowed the child to play with the rat. As soon as the rat approached the child, he started crying because child correlated rat with fear and sound of steel bars. So, the rat was initially the neutral stimulus which later turned out to be a conditional stimulus.