Spontaneous Recovery and Extinction
Spontaneous Recovery and Extinction
Spontaneous recovery from extinction is one of the most basic phenomena of Pavlovian conditioning. Although it can be studied by using a variety of designs, some procedures are better than others for identifying the involvement of underlying learning processes. A wide range of different learning mechanisms has been suggested as being engaged by extinction, most of which have implications for the nature of spontaneous recovery. However, despite the centrality of the notion of spontaneous recovery to the understanding of extinction, the empirical literature on its determinants is relatively sparse and quite mixed. Its very ubiquity suggests that spontaneous recovery has multiple sources.
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Experimental extinction is one of the fundamental observations of Pavlovian conditioning. Just as the arranging of a positive relation between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) produces acquisition of conditioned responding, breaking that relation produces extinction of that responding. However, similar to many terms in the behavioral sciences, the word “extinction” is used in at least three different senses: as a procedure, as a result, and as an explanation. If we are to understand extinction experiments, it is extremely important that we keep these senses distinct from each other.
One use of the term is as an experimental procedure or independent variable under the control of the experimenter, as when one says, “Following learning, we subjected the animal to an extinction procedure.” Most frequently, this is meant to refer to a procedure in which the original conditions of learning are disrupted. The most common extinction procedure consists of presenting a stimulus alone, so that it now fails to signal the outcome. However, other procedures, such as retaining the US but arranging for it to be independent of the CS are also available and of interest (see Rescorla
Spontaneous recovery from extinction is one of the most basic phenomena of Pavlovian conditioning. Although it can be studied by using a variety of designs, some procedures are better than others for identifying the involvement of underlying learning processes. A wide range of different learning mechanisms has been suggested as being engaged by extinction, most of which have implications for the nature of spontaneous recovery. However, despite the centrality of the notion of spontaneous recovery to the understanding of extinction, the empirical literature on its determinants is relatively sparse and quite mixed. Its very ubiquity suggests that spontaneous recovery has multiple sources.
Previous SectionNext Section
Experimental extinction is one of the fundamental observations of Pavlovian conditioning. Just as the arranging of a positive relation between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) produces acquisition of conditioned responding, breaking that relation produces extinction of that responding. However, similar to many terms in the behavioral sciences, the word “extinction” is used in at least three different senses: as a procedure, as a result, and as an explanation. If we are to understand extinction experiments, it is extremely important that we keep these senses distinct from each other.
One use of the term is as an experimental procedure or independent variable under the control of the experimenter, as when one says, “Following learning, we subjected the animal to an extinction procedure.” Most frequently, this is meant to refer to a procedure in which the original conditions of learning are disrupted. The most common extinction procedure consists of presenting a stimulus alone, so that it now fails to signal the outcome. However, other procedures, such as retaining the US but arranging for it to be independent of the CS are also available and of interest (see Rescorla