Cue exposure and overt fear responses as determinants of extinction of avoidance in rats.

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Abstract
Trained 5 groups of 8 male wistar albino rats each in a 1-way avoidance apparatus. Ss were given differential posttraining exposure to shock and/or nonshock sides and extinguished. During posttraining exposure fear responses were recorded using a time-sampling method. Results show that prevention of the avoidance response in the presence of shock cues facilitated extinction; but exposure to nonshock cues slowed extinction. Overt fear responses failed to predict significantly the order of extinction either within or between groups. Results are congruent with the assumptions that during acquisition fear responses develop to both shock and nonshock sides, exposure reduces fear responses, and extinction speed is a function of the resultant relative aversiveness of the 2 sides. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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