Excitatory/Inhibitory Conditioning

Excitatory/Inhibitory Conditioning

1. Excitatory

   • The CS has a positive relationship with the US. In other words, the CS comes to predict the occurrence of the US.

2. Inhibitory

   • The CS comes to predict the absence of an otherwise expected US.
     • Rescorla (1969) showed that a CS becomes inhibitory when the probability that the US will occur in the presence of the CS, p(US/CS), is smaller than the probability that the US will occur in the absence of the CS (p(US/noCS)
     • Real life examples:
     • Procedures that Produce CI: Negative Contingency/Explicitly Unpaired Stimuli, Backward Conditioning, Trace Conditioning (we will take a closer look at these later)
   • An internal state that prevents an organism from making some response (like salivation)
   • Describes the process that ccurs in extinction.