Extinction

Modified: 2024-07-01 10:24 AM CDST

• In lay terms, you can think of extinction as the "unconditioning" or unlearning of a conditioned response.
  • That sentence tells us something very important.
    • That is, extinction is not like forgetting.
    • We do not simply forget responses that have been conditioned.
    • Rather, if we want to remove conditioned responses, we have to extinguish them.
    • That fact has important implications in areas like therapy and child rearing.

  • Many years ago, Skinner conditioned some pigeons to make an operant response.
    • He then put those pigeons on a vacation; he let them just spend their time in the lab without doing any more operant conditioning.
    • When he returned them to the conditioning situation, some years after their original conditioning, they all exhibited the conditioned response.
    • So, in a sense, conditioning is forever, unless it is extinguished.
  • How do we extinguish?
    • In classical conditioning, we remove the UCS.
    • In operant conditioning, we remove the reinforcer.
    • Over a period, the animal will learn that the CS, or the operant response, is no longer being reinforced.
      • (The UCS is also considered to be a reinforcer. later in this chapter.)
• We will see soon, however, that conditioned behaviors can make a reappearance, even after extinction.