Cognitive Processes in Extinction: Figure 1

Abstract

Human conditioning research shows that learning is closely related to consciously available contingency knowledge, requires attentional resources, and is influenced by language. This research suggests a cognitive model in which extinction consists of changes in contingency beliefs in long-term memory. Laboratory and clinical evidence on extinction is briefly reviewed, and it is concluded that the evidence supports the cognitive position. There is little evidence for a separate, noncognitive conditioning system. The primary implication for neural analysis is that learning and extinction are unlikely to be reducible to direct connections in which one stimulus simply activates or inhibits the memory representation of another. Rather, an adequate neural model will involve the integration of both low-level and high-level systems, including attention, representation of stimulus relations in long-term memory, and a dynamic performance mechanism based on anticipation, not just activation.Extinction refers to the loss of an associatively based behavior when the associative relationships that generated the original learning have been changed. For example, in Pavlovian conditioning, the conditioned response (CR) declines over trials when the conditioned stimulus (CS) is no longer followed by the unconditioned stimulus (US). The way in which we view extinction necessarily follows from the way in which we conceptualize the initial conditioning. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and lay people alike share a common conceptualization of conditioning: It is seen as an automatic, unconscious, and low-level process that establishes excitatory or inhibitory associations between CS and US nodes in memory. In humans, conditioning is almost universally agreed to involve separate mechanisms from those involved in reasoning, language, and consciousness. Accordingly, extinction is also seen as an automatic and unconscious process that either reverses the original learned associations, or establishes new competing associations. But what if this traditional view of conditioning and extinction is wrong?In fact, research on conditioning in humans suggests it to be an entirely different process from that suggested by the traditional view. Evidence for a separate conditioning mechanism that is independent of higher cognitive processes has been remarkably difficult to obtain (Brewer 1974;Dawson and Schell 1985;Lovibond and Shanks 2002). Instead, conditioning in humans appears to be closely tied to attention, consciousness, and language. In this article, I will briefly summarize this research, then focus specifically on extinction in human conditioning, and finally consider the implications for research into the neural basis of conditioning and extinction in both animals and humans.

Can prepared fear conditioning result from verbal instructions?

“…This result is in contrast with those from Hugdahl (1978), who did find strong resistance to extinction for fear-relevant CS+s on the basis of verbal instructions, but is reminiscent of the results of several subsequent studies that failed to replicate this effect (see: Lovibond, 2004;McNally, 1981;1987).…”

“…First, the resistance to instructed extinction effect (Hugdahl & Öhman, 1977;Hugdahl, 1978;Öhman, Erixon, & Lofberg, 1975) has been difficult to replicate. In subsequent studies, the combination of an extinction phase with explicit instructions that USs would no longer be presented, resulted in a complete reduction of the CR for both fearrelevant and fear-irrelevant CSs (Lovibond, 2004;McNally, 1987). Second, there is a methodological issue that might complicate the interpretation of the results from Hugdahl and Öhman (1977) and Hugdahl (1978).…”

Contingency awareness and fear inhibition in a human fear-potentiated startle paradigm.

“…Fear inhibition processes, such as discrimination between reinforced and nonreinforced stimuli, extinction, conditioned inhibition, or even exposure therapy, in which safety cues are learned, may in humans be based on a cognitive model and rely on contingency awareness (Lovibond, 2004). One potential explanation for the diverging demands on awareness in fear acquisition and fear inhibition may be that inhibition involves the hippocampus, whereas acquisition involves the amygdala.…”

Return of fear after retrospective inferences about the absence of an unconditioned stimulus during extinction

“…Several authors have focused attention on the cognitive processes that underlie extinction effects (e.g., Bouton, 1993Bouton, , 2002Hermans, et al, 2006;Lovibond, 2004). Most theories postulate the existence of associations in memory and explain extinction in terms of a change in the strength of the association between the CS and the US (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) or through the emergence of a new inhibitory association (Bouton, 1993(Bouton, , 2002.…”

“…On the other hand, propositional models account for the context specificity of extinction by postulating that people might not use the extinction trials to infer that there has been a general change in the CS-US relation (Lovibond, 2004). That is, if there are reasons to believe that the absence of the US during the extinction phase was due to a third factor that was present only during the extinction trials, they might doubt the validity of a general inference, and allocate the change in the CS-US relation to that third factor.…”