A comparator view of Pavlovian and differential inhibition

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Vol. 32; no. 3; p. 271
• Main Authors: Urcelay, Gonzalo P, Miller, Ralph R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.07.2006
• Subjects: Analysis of Variance; Animals; Association Learning - physiology; Behavior, Animal; Conditioning, Classical - physiology; Extinction, Psychological; Female; Habituation, Psychophysiologic - physiology; Inhibition (Psychology); Male; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Reaction Time - physiology; Reinforcement Schedule
• ISSN: 0097-7403
• DOI: 10.1037/0097-7403.32.3.271

In 3 experiments using rats as subjects, the authors varied trial spacing to investigate the conditions under which Pavlovian and differential inhibition are observed. Experiment 1 compared Pavlovian and differential inhibition with spaced training trials. Spaced trials resulted in only the Pavlovian inhibitor passing both summation and retardation tests. Conversely, Experiment 2 compared these 2 types of inhibition with massed training trials. This training resulted in only the differential inhibitor passing both tests for conditioned inhibition. Finally, in Experiment 3 all subjects experienced Pavlovian inhibition training with massed trials. Although this training by itself did not result in behavior indicative of inhibition, subjects that also experienced posttraining extinction of the training context did pass both tests for inhibition. Overall, these results are anticipated by the extended comparator hypothesis (Denniston, Savastano, & Miller, 2001) but are problematic for most contemporary associative learning theories.