If George is startled by a loud noise immediately after his baby sister cries, he is likely to become fearful every time she cries. If Ken is startled by a loud noise immediately before his baby sister cries, he is not likely to become fearful when she cries. What do the different reactions of George and Ken suggest about the role of cognitive processes in associative learning?

Associative learning is a form of conditioning, specifically a principle stating that events or stimuli are linked to others in memory and are thus recalled together. Now this is very similar to classical conditioning, when if a neutral stimulus was presented immediately before an unconditioned stimulus (one that produces a natural response), the neutral stimulus would become conditioned and produce the same response. This is why when George hears his sister cry and then hears a loud noise that scares him, every time he hears his sister cry he will associate it with the fear of the loud noise. Switching the order doesn't condition for fear, since the neutral stimulus doesn't predict the unconditioned stimulus.

This is associative learning.

The reactions of George and Ken are based on when they are startled. George will learn to associate his sister's crying with him being startled because it happens every time his sister cries.

Whereas Ken will not know when his sister will cry or when he will be startled by the crying so this has no affect on Ken.

Hence, crying will affect George but not Ken.