A process inferred from a response decrement. The term, extended to behaviour by analogy to usage in physiology, is appropriate only when it can be demonstrated that the decrement is produced by an increment in something else (e.g., if reinforcing one response reduces the rate of another, the reinforcement may be said to inhibit the second response). The term is sometimes extended to accounts of the process of extinction, in part because extinction may be accompanied by increments in other responding (e.g., behaviour characterised as emotional). Such accounts are often unsupported by demonstrations that the increments produce the extinction decrement rather than simply accompany it, and when they do not distinguish between conditions that reduce responding and those that fail to maintain it they may be misleading. See also PROACTION, RETROACTION.