Informational Variables in Pavlovian Conditioning

It is suggested that although the informational intuition serves an initially useful purpose, it does not provide an adequate conceptualization around which the understanding of Pavlovian conditioning can be organized.

Abstract

Instead of specifying the notion of information formally, this chapter examines some of the empirical operations and results which have led investigators to the intuition that information matters in conditioning. The chapter then suggests a theory, which acknowledges the importance of these operations in producing conditioning and discuss some empirical assessments of that theory. To the degree that the theory accounts for those operations which suggest the intuition of information, it can be viewed as an explication of that intuition, however, that notion does not enter into the theory itself. As the theory is explored, a number of points are discovered at which it provides a better account of the data than does the original intuition. Consequently, it is suggested that although the informational intuition serves an initially useful purpose, it does not provide an adequate conceptualization around which the understanding of Pavlovian conditioning can be organized.