Effects of punishment on extinction of avoidance behavior: Avoidance-avoidance conflict or vicious circle behavior?

Abstract
Rats, trained to avoid shock in a 7-ft. runway, were punished with a brief shock during extinction. The start-punished group was punished just outside the start box and the goal-punished group was punished just before entering the goal box. The start-punished group ran faster and showed slightly greater resistance to extinction than a control group. In contrast, the goal-punished group extinguished more rapidly than the control group. The results were interpreted as showing that punishment of an aversively motivated response could either enhance or inhibit performance during extinction, depending upon how punishment was administered.

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