CBCC-KA COMPREHENSIVE EXAM 2026 QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Define: Differential Reinforcement - ✔✔Any procedure that combines extinction and
reinforcement to change the frequency of a target behaviour
✔✔Define: DRL - ✔✔Differential Reinforcement of a Low Rate Behaviour
✔✔Define: Differential Reinforcement of Low Rate - ✔✔The procedure of reinforcing the
target behaviour only when it occurs at a low rate
✔✔How can DRL be applied? - ✔✔By only reinforcing the target behaviour after a given
period of time or when it occurs less than a given number of times in a given period
✔✔Define: DRA - ✔✔Differential Reinforcement of Alternate Behaviour
✔✔Define: Pavlovian Condtioning - ✔✔Any procedure in which an event comes to elicit
a response by being paired with an event that elicits that response
✔✔Define: Maintenance - ✔✔Generalization over time
✔✔Define: Schedule of Reinforcement - ✔✔Reinforcement
A rule governing the delivery of reinforcers
✔✔Define: Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement - ✔✔A schedule of reinforcement based
on the number of times it occurs
✔✔Define: Fixed Ration Schedule of Reinforcement - ✔✔Provide a reinforcer after the
target behaviour has occured N number of times
✔✔What does the term FR-1 mean and how often would it occur? - ✔✔Fixed Ratio 1,
where one behaviour occurs and it is reinforced on the ration of 1:1; also known as
continuous rate of reinforcement
✔✔Define: Contnuous Reinforcement - ✔✔Reinforcement of every incidence of a
beahviour
✔✔Define: CRF - ✔✔Continuous Reinforcement
✔✔Define: VR or VRS - ✔✔Variable Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement
✔✔Define: Variable Ratio Schedule - ✔✔Provide a reinofrcer after the target behaviour
has occured a number of times with the number varying around an average of N
,✔✔activity reinforcers - ✔✔Also called the premack principle or premack reinforcer.
Pets are given access to a more highly reinforcing activity after performing a less
reinforcing activity.
ex: dog is released to run and play in the backyard after they perform a sit and wait at
the door prior to it being opened. This makes the target behavior of sitting and waiting
more likely because of the pos. reinf. contingency of being released to go run and play.
✔✔Affect - ✔✔A feeling which can be inferred in a pet by outward expression and
movements consistent with that pets individual ethogram.
Affect, along with motivation and cognition, create what is called a triad of psychological
functions which is associated with the mammalian limbic system.
✔✔affective aggression - ✔✔provokes the sympathetic nervous system, emotional
arousal. It is very different to non-affective aggression, predation.
✔✔anecdotal evidence - ✔✔1st or 2nd hand information about and individual's personal
experience.
An informal observation that has not been systematically tested.
Both pos. and neg. anecdotal evidence are unreliable as they do not provide tangible
data that can be stratified, analyzed or scientifically interpreted.
✔✔appetitive stimulus - ✔✔a pleasant or satisfying stimulus that can be used to
positively reinforce an instrumental response. Only chosen by the pet
✔✔autonomic nervous system - ✔✔A subdivision of the peripheral nervous system.
Controls involuntary activity of visceral muscles and internal organs and glands which
includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
✔✔backward conditioning - ✔✔US before CS and weakens the contingency between
the US and CS.
In respondent conditioning the amount of learning depends on the degree to which the
CS predicts the US.
when the natural stimulus is presented and terminated before the conditioned stimulus
is presented. If Pavlov had presented the food and then, after the dog ate, presented
the sound of the bell, the tone alone would not elicit much salivation, since it no longer
signals that food is imminent. Backward conditioning is controversial because many
psychologists argue that it does not work.
✔✔behavioral economics - ✔✔The phenomenon for pets to develop strategies of
getting the most food for the least amount of work
, the study of situations in which people make choices that do not appear to be
economically rational.
✔✔Behavioral momentum - ✔✔The tendency for a behavior to become more resistant
to extinction the greater the reinforcement history.
✔✔blocking (blocking effect) - ✔✔a respondent conditioning phenomenon when a pet
fails to learn an association w/ a stimulus that is more powerful.
Blocking is not the same as overshadowing, which applies to operant conditioning.
✔✔Overt VS Covert
Respondent VS Operant - ✔✔Overt: Observable, measurable behaviour
Covert: Unable to measure, non-observable behaviour
respondent: behavior easily influenced by events
Operant: is selected and maintained by consequences
✔✔How does the neonatal period affect behavior? - ✔✔(birth - 2wkks)
-maternal behavior toward offspring & ELS can have impact on behavioral and physical
development
- intense prolonged ELS can intensify sensitivity to stressful and anxiety provoking
situations
✔✔Catharsis or abreaction - ✔✔- a psychological mechanism by which punishing a
human or pet can become positively reinforcing.
ALSO called Abreaction
✔✔clickerwise - ✔✔- term referring to a pet that has learned the concepts of luring,
capturing and shaping thus being able to learn at a more rapid rate than a pet that is not
"clickerwise"
✔✔experimental questions - ✔✔- the way in which a researcher arranges conditions to
test hypothesis about any effects that independent variables may have on dependent
-
✔✔experimental design - ✔✔the way in which a researcher arranges conditions to test
hypothesis about any effects that independent variables may have on dependent
variable
AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Define: Differential Reinforcement - ✔✔Any procedure that combines extinction and
reinforcement to change the frequency of a target behaviour
✔✔Define: DRL - ✔✔Differential Reinforcement of a Low Rate Behaviour
✔✔Define: Differential Reinforcement of Low Rate - ✔✔The procedure of reinforcing the
target behaviour only when it occurs at a low rate
✔✔How can DRL be applied? - ✔✔By only reinforcing the target behaviour after a given
period of time or when it occurs less than a given number of times in a given period
✔✔Define: DRA - ✔✔Differential Reinforcement of Alternate Behaviour
✔✔Define: Pavlovian Condtioning - ✔✔Any procedure in which an event comes to elicit
a response by being paired with an event that elicits that response
✔✔Define: Maintenance - ✔✔Generalization over time
✔✔Define: Schedule of Reinforcement - ✔✔Reinforcement
A rule governing the delivery of reinforcers
✔✔Define: Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement - ✔✔A schedule of reinforcement based
on the number of times it occurs
✔✔Define: Fixed Ration Schedule of Reinforcement - ✔✔Provide a reinforcer after the
target behaviour has occured N number of times
✔✔What does the term FR-1 mean and how often would it occur? - ✔✔Fixed Ratio 1,
where one behaviour occurs and it is reinforced on the ration of 1:1; also known as
continuous rate of reinforcement
✔✔Define: Contnuous Reinforcement - ✔✔Reinforcement of every incidence of a
beahviour
✔✔Define: CRF - ✔✔Continuous Reinforcement
✔✔Define: VR or VRS - ✔✔Variable Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement
✔✔Define: Variable Ratio Schedule - ✔✔Provide a reinofrcer after the target behaviour
has occured a number of times with the number varying around an average of N
,✔✔activity reinforcers - ✔✔Also called the premack principle or premack reinforcer.
Pets are given access to a more highly reinforcing activity after performing a less
reinforcing activity.
ex: dog is released to run and play in the backyard after they perform a sit and wait at
the door prior to it being opened. This makes the target behavior of sitting and waiting
more likely because of the pos. reinf. contingency of being released to go run and play.
✔✔Affect - ✔✔A feeling which can be inferred in a pet by outward expression and
movements consistent with that pets individual ethogram.
Affect, along with motivation and cognition, create what is called a triad of psychological
functions which is associated with the mammalian limbic system.
✔✔affective aggression - ✔✔provokes the sympathetic nervous system, emotional
arousal. It is very different to non-affective aggression, predation.
✔✔anecdotal evidence - ✔✔1st or 2nd hand information about and individual's personal
experience.
An informal observation that has not been systematically tested.
Both pos. and neg. anecdotal evidence are unreliable as they do not provide tangible
data that can be stratified, analyzed or scientifically interpreted.
✔✔appetitive stimulus - ✔✔a pleasant or satisfying stimulus that can be used to
positively reinforce an instrumental response. Only chosen by the pet
✔✔autonomic nervous system - ✔✔A subdivision of the peripheral nervous system.
Controls involuntary activity of visceral muscles and internal organs and glands which
includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
✔✔backward conditioning - ✔✔US before CS and weakens the contingency between
the US and CS.
In respondent conditioning the amount of learning depends on the degree to which the
CS predicts the US.
when the natural stimulus is presented and terminated before the conditioned stimulus
is presented. If Pavlov had presented the food and then, after the dog ate, presented
the sound of the bell, the tone alone would not elicit much salivation, since it no longer
signals that food is imminent. Backward conditioning is controversial because many
psychologists argue that it does not work.
✔✔behavioral economics - ✔✔The phenomenon for pets to develop strategies of
getting the most food for the least amount of work
, the study of situations in which people make choices that do not appear to be
economically rational.
✔✔Behavioral momentum - ✔✔The tendency for a behavior to become more resistant
to extinction the greater the reinforcement history.
✔✔blocking (blocking effect) - ✔✔a respondent conditioning phenomenon when a pet
fails to learn an association w/ a stimulus that is more powerful.
Blocking is not the same as overshadowing, which applies to operant conditioning.
✔✔Overt VS Covert
Respondent VS Operant - ✔✔Overt: Observable, measurable behaviour
Covert: Unable to measure, non-observable behaviour
respondent: behavior easily influenced by events
Operant: is selected and maintained by consequences
✔✔How does the neonatal period affect behavior? - ✔✔(birth - 2wkks)
-maternal behavior toward offspring & ELS can have impact on behavioral and physical
development
- intense prolonged ELS can intensify sensitivity to stressful and anxiety provoking
situations
✔✔Catharsis or abreaction - ✔✔- a psychological mechanism by which punishing a
human or pet can become positively reinforcing.
ALSO called Abreaction
✔✔clickerwise - ✔✔- term referring to a pet that has learned the concepts of luring,
capturing and shaping thus being able to learn at a more rapid rate than a pet that is not
"clickerwise"
✔✔experimental questions - ✔✔- the way in which a researcher arranges conditions to
test hypothesis about any effects that independent variables may have on dependent
-
✔✔experimental design - ✔✔the way in which a researcher arranges conditions to test
hypothesis about any effects that independent variables may have on dependent
variable
