Latent inhibition: what does this perception of stimuli consist of?

Classical conditioning is one of the simplest yet most powerful forms of learning known.

Within this procedure, There are different key concepts to understand the potential of this technique, and one of them is that of latent inhibition. Through these lines we will better understand what it consists of and what is its importance.

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What is latent inhibition?

Latent inhibition is a concept of the classical conditioning and refers to the fact that a stimulus familiar to the subject is more difficult to convert into a conditioned stimulus or into a signal in front of another that that individual does not yet know and therefore it is neutral for him.

The key to understanding the phenomenon of latent inhibition is to pause for a moment to think about the endless amount of stimuli to which we are subjected from the beginning of the day until we we go to bed. Huge amounts of data reach us through the five senses, but in front of most of them we are so used that we do not give them the slightest importance. They are simply there.

This automatic filtering system in our brain is called latent inhibition. Therefore, if we intend to condition the person using any of these stimuli, which already occur Normally in your day to day, it will be difficult for you to associate it with the answer we are looking for, because his perceptual system will filter him out of the scheme and have a hard time establishing an association.

If we did not have this mechanism, we would constantly be suffering from association processes between stimuli that would have little or nothing to see, simply because they would occur in our day to day, in close time spans, but fortunately the latent inhibition acts as protection against this hypothetical possibility of indiscriminate association, which would generate more than one headache in our routine daily.

The original study

The concept of latent inhibition was discovered by psychologists Lubow and Moore, in a study published in 1959, where they explain this phenomenon, observed in laboratory conditions. In their experiment, they divided the subjects into two groups. The first of them was presented with the neutral stimulus, without being followed by any consequence.

After habituation, they began the second phase, in which both the first and second groups were presented, first with the stimulus neutral (to which the first of the groups had already been exposed, but which was novel for the second) and then the stimulus unconditioned. Once this was done, they compared the results of the conditioning achieved.

Indeed, his prediction came true. A greater difficulty in converting the neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus was observed in those individuals who had already been previously exposed to it, since they were already used to it and therefore found it more difficult to establish the association between the two events.

On the other hand, for the subjects of the second group, the conditioning was very simple, since as they did not know in advance the neutral stimulus, the latent inhibition had not been generated in them and therefore both had no problem in quickly establishing the association between the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus, thus converting the neutral stimulus into a stimulus conditioned.

Different theories that explain it

Once we know how the phenomenon of latent inhibition works, we could ask ourselves what is its explanation, why it happens this way, not only in human beings but in numerous species of mammals in which it has been shown to exist, which means that this mechanism comes from a common ancestor long before all of them U.S.

To try to give a plausible explanation to the explanation of this mechanism, different theories have been put forward. One of them maintains that, after a neutral stimulus, which is not followed by any relevant consequence, our brain assigns a reduction in the associativity of said stimulus, so it goes into the background from then on, attenuating the attentional processes in relation to that stimulus.

On the other hand, a different theory argues that in reality, in the face of the neutral stimulus, an association would be established (so that nothing happens), and therefore, when presenting this stimulus to two groups, one that has perceived it before and the other that not, before presenting the unconditioned stimulus, the first group will have it more difficult because there is already a previous association that is now competing with the new one, while for the other group it would be a single association and therefore it would be simpler.

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High and low latent inhibition

We have already seen that latent inhibition is a very useful mechanism that we have to discard all the information to which we are exposed at all times and that is not useful for our normal activity. This is what would be considered to have a high latent inhibition, that is, it works normally and correctly filters everything that is not useful to us at that moment.

However, not all people have this skill correctly developed, and there are individuals who would have what is known as low latent inhibition. These people, instead of discriminating between those stimuli that are useful to us and those that are not, do not establish any filtering and therefore they process so much each of those that are presented to them at every moment, and we have already seen that it is a colossal amount of stimuli.

This situation, obviously, presents a problem for the person who suffers from it, and that is that the level of mental activity required for this titanic task is enormous. Therefore, it is not surprising that, faced with this avalanche of information, without any screening, the brain of an individual with low latent inhibition can collapse.

Not all people with this condition have the strength that such a task requires, so it is important that these individuals work to improve their capabilities attention and focus, because maintaining this exhausting activity for a long time can generate from a feeling of constant frustration to more pathologies serious.

Low latent inhibition and intelligence

The good part of the problem raised in the previous point is that, if individuals with latent inhibition low they come to control that ability to focus to focus each time on the stimuli that matter in that moment, will have a significant advantage over individuals with high latent inhibition, since they will be able to pay attention to all the stimuli that are before them and that most of us would ignore without even noticing their existence.

Imagine, for example, the work of a police officer or a detective with this type of skills, analyzing all the conditions of the scene of a crime, paying attention to every little detail, many of which would be almost invisible to the eyes of his peers, highly inhibited latent. This is just one example, but the truth is that these people would have a great advantage in almost all situations.

In fact, although this phenomenon has been studied since the concept of latent inhibition as such was discovered, references to the same idea can be found in very extensive studies. earlier, such as those of the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s, and even much earlier, in the early Gestalt school, at the turn of the century. past.

What is important to be clear about is that, generally, people with low latent inhibition and enough mental strength to withstand this condition, they are people of great capabilities intellectually, but This does not imply that all geniuses have that condition, since it does not necessarily always have to be this way. But, if we meet a person with a very outstanding and special talent in some field, it is not unreasonable to think that he is an individual with a low latent inhibition.

Neural Physiology and Basis

Studies on latent inhibition also make other interesting facts clear. For example, it is shown that dopamine, as well as its agonists and antagonists, have a direct effect on the latent inhibition rate of the individual. In this sense, patients with pathologies such as schizophrenia have low inhibition as a base latent, but when being medicated with antipsychotics, such as haloperidol, this rate is increased significantly.

This would explain, at least in part, the effect produced by this type of psychotropic drug, which seems to extremely relax the patient and considerably reduce their attentional capacity, causing them to stop analyzing all the sensory information that reaches them, being able to focus only on those pertinent stimuli.

Conversely, If a dopamine agonist substance, such as amphetamines, is administered to a subject, we will obtain just the opposite effect, totally reducing the latent inhibition and generating that the person captures every last of the stimuli that are reaching your five senses, paying attention to each of them, with the mental effort that it it implies.

Bibliographic references:

• Daza, M.T., López, G., Álvarez, R. (2002). Experimental procedures in the study of latent inhibition in humans. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy.
• De la Casa, L.G. (2002). Latent inhibition as an analysis procedure of the attentional process in the face of irrelevant stimuli. Journal of General and Applied Psychology.
• Lubow, R.E., Moore, A.U. (1959). Latent inhibition: the effect of nonreinforced pre-exposure to the conditional stimulus. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology.
• Serra, F.F., De la Casa, L.G. (1989). A theoretical review of the explanatory attempts of the phenomenon of latent inhibition. Journal of General and Applied Psychology.