Reactive inhibition is a phrase coined by Clark L. Hull

Clark L. Hull

Clark Leonard Hull was an influential American psychologist who sought to explain learning and motivation by scientific laws of behavior. Born in Akron, New York, Hull obtained bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Michigan, and in 1918 a PhD from the University of...

 (1951) in his postulate X.A.:

Whenever a reaction R is evoked from an organism there is left an increment of primary negative drive I_R which inhibits to a degree according to its magnitude the reaction potential _SE_R to that response (Hull, 1951, p. 74).

According to Hull's postulate X.B. inhibition I dissipates exponentially with time t:.:

With the passage of time since its formation I_R spontaneously dissipates approximately as a simple decay function of the time t elapsed, i.e.,
(Hull, 1951, p. 74).

Hull's decay formula is somewhat awkward and might give rise to confusion. For example, I_R does not refer to the derivative of I_R. A more convenient way of writing the formula would be as follows:


with . is the inhibition at the beginning the time interval [0,t]. Note, that if one takes the natural logarithm of both sides one obtains:


where and . The last formula is used in Inhibition Theory

Inhibition Theory

Inhibition theory is based on the basic assumption that, during the performance of any mental task, which requires a minimum of mental effort, the subject actually goes through a series of alternating states of distraction and attention...

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