7 - Theories and explanations of latent inhibition in animals

Summary

How can one explain the latent inhibition phenomenon? Why does nonreinforced stimulus preexposure of the to-be-conditioned stimulus result in a decrement in associability to that stimulus as compared with another stimulus that has not been preexposed? Thus far, this book has provided a description of the means whereby one can produce latent inhibition, attenuate latent inhibition, and even obliterate latent inhibition. If these conditions can be divided into those that are necessary and those that are sufficient, perhaps that is explanation enough. However, researchers have not always allowed themselves the comfort of such readily attained descriptions, but have sought other explanations for this phenomenon, usually either in neurophysiology, hypothetical (Hebb, 1955) or real, or in behavior, where “explanation” means “related to other behavioral concepts and/or empirical laws.” Thus, for conceptual nervous system type explanations, writers interested in latent inhibition have appealed to habituation, particularly of the orienting response (Maltzman & Raskin, 1965; Wolff & Maltzman, 1968), and filter-type attention mechanisms (Ackil et al., 1969; Carlton & Vogel, 1967; Siegel, 1969a). More recently, as we saw in the last chapter, there has been a considerable amount of work on the real nervous system in regard to latent inhibition, with accompanying theoretical considerations.

Those inclined to find explanations within behavior theory have inspected the possibilities of conditioned inhibition (Reiss & Wagner, 1972; Rescorla, 1971) and competing or complementary responses (Lubow & Moore, 1959; Lubow et al., 1968).