ABSTRACT
IT was pointed out in the general introduction that if, for example, a depressant drug resulted in behaviour patterns concordant with those expected of a group scoring high on extraversión, support would have been brought for the hypothesis connecting extraversión with an exaggeration of the inhibitory potential. Of the many processes where central neural inhibition and excitation levels are believed to play an important role, those involved in conditioning and nonsense syllable learning provide two of the more obvious examples. Conditioning was described and analysed by Pavlov and his associates (1927) in terms of inhibitory and excitatory neural potentials and these or similar concepts have been retained either implicitly or explicitly by later workers. Likewise, the various phenomena associated with the rote learning of nonsense syllables have been accounted for, in analogous terms, by Hull and his associates (1940). If, then, measures of conditioning and rote learning are taken, after the administration of depressants such as Doriden and Meprobamate, it should follow, as a consequence of the drug postulate, that ‘extravert’ behaviour patterns be disclosed and the primary hypothesis that the extravert is characterized by an exaggeration of the inhibitory potential would be thus supported.
