Common processes may contribute to extinction and habituation.

Full Abstract

Psychologists routinely attribute the characteristics of conditioned behavior to complicated cognitive processes. For example, many of the characteristics of behavior undergoing extinction have been attributed to retrieval from memory. The authors argue that these characteristics may result from the simpler process of habituation. In particular, conditioned responding may decrease during extinction partially because habituation occurs to the stimuli that control responding when those stimuli are presented repeatedly or for a prolonged time (e.g., the experimental context, the conditioned stimulus in classical conditioning). This idea is parsimonious, has face validity, and evokes only processes that are well established by other evidence. In addition, behavior undergoing extinction shows 12 of the fundamental properties of behavior undergoing habituation. However, this model probably cannot provide a complete theory of extinction. It provides no obvious explanation for some of the other characteristics of extinguished behavior.

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Author information

Author/s: McSweeney, Frances K (FK); Swindell, Samantha (S);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Pullman 99164-4820, USA. fkmcs@mail.wsu.edu

Grants: R01 MH61720 (Agency:United States NIMH)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.; Review

Journal: The Journal of general psychology (J Gen Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Oct; vol 129 (issue 4) : pp 364-400

Dates: Created 2002/12/23; Completed 2003/04/01; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 12494990, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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