ABSTRACT
One of the most widely known phenomena in the field of associative learning is that of experimental extinction. Any discussion of the acquisition of responding as a result of arranging a contingent relation, either between two stimuli or between responding and a stimulus, includes the observation that disrupting that contingency results in the loss of responding. Curves describing extinction feature as prominently in our textbooks as do curves of acquisition. Yet our understanding of the processes underlying those curves remains very primitive.
