Learning and the persistence of appetite: Extinction and the motivation to eat and overeat

The modern world is saturated with highly palatable and highly available food, providing many opportunities to associate food with environmental cues and actions (through Pavlovian and operant or instrumental learning, respectively). Basic learning processes can often increase the tendency to approach and consume food, whereas extinction, in which Pavlovian and operant behaviors decline when the reinforcer is withheld, weakens but does not erase those tendencies. Contemporary research suggests that extinction involves an inhibitory form of new learning that appears fragile because it is highly dependent on the context for expression. These ideas are supported by the phenomena of renewal, spontaneous recovery, resurgence, reinstatement, and rapid reacquisition in appetitive learning, which together may help explain why overeating may be difficult to suppress permanently, and why appetitive behavior may seem so persistent.

Research Highlights► Reviews research on appetitive learning to understand why appetite is so persistent. ► Extinction is not erasure, but inhibits learned behavior in a context-specific way. ► Renewal, spontaneous recovery, resurgence, reinstatement, reacquisition illustrate. ► These effects can contribute to relapse and overeating.