A hyena repeatedly issues false warning calls to its clan until the clan stops responding. What type of learning has occurred?

A hyena repeatedly issues false warning calls to its clan until the clan stops responding. What type of learning has occurred?

• A. Classical conditioning
• B. Habituation
• C. Sensitization
• D. Operant conditioning

Answer: (B)

Habituation is at work here. When a stimulus is repeated and found to be inconsequential, organisms tend to reduce their response to it over time. The hyena’s clan keeps hearing warning calls that don’t predict real danger, so their vigilance wanes and they eventually stop reacting. This is nonassociative learning—the animal isn’t forming a new link between two cues. It’s not classical conditioning, which would require pairing the call with a real threat to create a new response; it’s not sensitization, which would increase the response to a stimulus after repeated exposure; and it’s not operant conditioning, which would involve learning from the consequences of a behavior.

Habituation is at work here. When a stimulus is repeated and found to be inconsequential, organisms tend to reduce their response to it over time. The hyena’s clan keeps hearing warning calls that don’t predict real danger, so their vigilance wanes and they eventually stop reacting. This is nonassociative learning—the animal isn’t forming a new link between two cues. It’s not classical conditioning, which would require pairing the call with a real threat to create a new response; it’s not sensitization, which would increase the response to a stimulus after repeated exposure; and it’s not operant conditioning, which would involve learning from the consequences of a behavior.