FIGURE 2.

A cartoon depicting what is learned in Pavlovian extinction. During extinction, a new inhibitory association is learned between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) (blocked red line). The excitatory CS-US association learned during conditioning (green arrow) remains intact; it can activate the representation of the US, causing conditioned responding (not shown). However, its effect is canceled by activation of the inhibitory CS-US association. The inhibitory association is activated by the extinction context (green arrow). Outside the extinction context, the inhibitory association is not enabled, and response recovery occurs. The extinction context thus controls responding by selecting the CS’s inhibitory association with the US.