The present study used 13 male, hooded rats in a within-subjects design to test the hypothesis that a modified avoidance-avoidance conflict situation in a discrimination learning task would evoke a more intense auditory startle reaction than would the absence of such conflict. The presumed mechanism was an increase in drive or arousal, as a consequence of the conflict, resulting in greater startle. The findings were inconsistent with the hypothesis; the startle reactions of animals in a conflict situation were not different from those of animals in a non-conflict situation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.