Abstract
For some decades, failures to find extinction of inhibition through unpaired presentations of the inhibitor were taken as evidence against conceptualizing inhibition as the symmetrical counterpart of excitation. Recently, however, our group has demonstrated successful extinction of inhibition in human causal learning. In two experiments, we replicated and strengthened this finding by using an outcome continuum that could take on negative, neutral, or positive values. In contrast, the use of a dichotomous outcome continuum (either neutral or positive) resulted in the well-known nonoccurrence of extinction. Extinction of inhibition through the pairing of inhibitors with neutral outcomes was assessed by (1) comparing the (presumably) extinguished inhibitor with a second inhibitor that had not been presented with a neutral outcome in the extinction stage, and (2) demonstrating the course of extinction in participants’ predictions.
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This research was supported by Grant LA 564/18-1 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to H.L. We thank Ralph Miller for substantial suggestions regarding SOCR and for drawing our attention to the contrast effects account. Furthermore, we are deeply indebted to Klaus Melchers, who, being overmodest, decided not to become a coauthor of the present article. We also thank Jana Anding for her help in collecting the data and with the preparation of the manuscript.
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Lotz, A., Lachnit, H. Extinction of conditioned inhibition: Effects of different outcome continua. Learning & Behavior 37, 85–94 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.37.1.85
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.37.1.85