Extinction of an Avoidance Response in Rats VIA Response Prevention (Flooding): A Test for Residual Fear

Abstract

In a 2 × 2 factorial design, 80 rats wete trained to avoid either 0.5 or 1.3 mA. shock in an automated apparatus. Following acquisition, the rats were extinguished with or without response prevention (second factor). The results confirmed that response prevention is effective in hastening the extinction of an avoidance response. Following extinction, the application of a loud buzzer induced a recovery-from-extinction of the response in all groups. This was taken to indicate that residual fear was present in all groups and roughly to the same extent. Various theoretical implications were discussed.