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Transmarginal inhibition (TMI) of response is an intriguing behavioral phenomenon. It refers to the disruption – usually observed as a decrement either in the quantity or quality – of response as a result of exposure to stimuli of rising magnitude (e.g., noise intensity). At high levels of stimulation, TMI is thought to reflect the functional exhaustion of neuronal processes and the evocation of a protective mechanism to prevent neurophysiological damage. TMI may also be seen as the result of psychological processes with “rising magnitude” defined in terms of an increasing conflict between goal representations which impose cognitive, emotional, and motivational overload – when the threshold of adaptive responding is exceeded, TMI is evoked. This breakdown in the orderly relation between stimulus (or goal representation) intensity and response quantity/quality underlies the everyday notion of a “nervous breakdown” – its epistemological...
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References
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Corr, P. (2017). Transmarginal Inhibition (TMI). In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_876-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_876-1
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