The Structure of Learning

CHAPTER  10

Excitation, Inhibition, and Competition

Chapters 2 and 3 outline the defining operations of experimental extinction in the procedures of classical and instrumental conditioning. Other chapters, such as chapter 7, illustrate the use of extinction in particular experiments. The defining operations of secondary reward in chapter 7, for example, require measurement under conditions of extinction for primary reward. Extinction is an interesting and important phenomenon in its own right, however, and this chapter concentrates on the problems that the phenomenon of extinction presents for contingent reinforcement theory and cognitive expectancy theory, and also offers an alternative in terms of feed forward contiguity.

Figure 10.1 represents ...