Conditioned fear and neophobia following inescapable shock

Minor, Thomas R.

doi:10.3758/bf03205261

Cited by 44 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(64 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Before each fear test, a rat that was not participating in the experiment received five shocks in the grid-floor compartment of the test apparatus to ensure that rat stress-odors were present (cf. Minor, 1990;Minor & LoLordo, 1984 Figure 2. Mean suppression (%) of quinine drinking during the sessions of Test Days 1, 2, and 3 at 1200 h in each of the three groups.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of order of shock durations on helplessness in rats

Prabhakar

Job

1996

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Whereas rats exposed to a series of progressively decreasing shock durations show deficits in shuttleescape performance 24 h later, the same number and intensity of shocks in the reverse (increasing) order of durations does not produce the "learned helplessness" effect (Balleine & Job, 1991). Weconducted two experiments to establish the generality of this shock-duration order effect on other measures of distress and helplessness in rats. In Experiment 1, rats exposed to decreasing durations of inescapable shock showed reduced consumption of quinine-adulterated water (finickiness), whereas increasing durations produced no finickiness. By contrast, increasing shock durations produced greater conditioned fear to the shock context than did decreasing shock durations in Experiment 2. The differential effects of shock-duration order on finickiness and fear are explicated in terms of the specificity of fear conditioning during exposure to increasing versus decreasing series of shock duration orders.Animals exposed to uncontrollable (inescapable) electric shock frequently show subsequently retarded escape and avoidance learning when compared with subjects receiving prior controllable (escapable) shock or simple apparatus exposure (Brown & Dixon, 1983;Job, 1987;Maier, 1970;Overmier & Seligman, 1967;Rosellini, DeCola, Plonsky,Warren, & Stillman, 1984). The occurrence of this learned helplessness effect is influenced by a variety ofparameters associated with the schedule ofuncontrollable shock used during stress pretreatment, including shock intensity and duration (Glazer & Weiss, 1976a;Jackson, Maier, & Rapaport, 1978;Rosellini & Seligman, 1978;Steenbergen, Heinsbroek, Van Haaren, & Van de Poll, 1989), current characteristics (Crowell, Lupo, Cunningham, & Anderson, 1978), the minimum intertrial interval (Minor, Trauner, Lee, & Dess, 1990;Rosellini, DeCola, & Warren, 1986),and the ability to predict shock termination or shock-free periods (Jackson & Minor, 1988; Minor et aI., 1990;Overmier & Murison, 1989). A number ofstudies also suggest that the ordering ofshock durations across pretreatment trials is an important determinant ofthe helplessness effect.In the traditional triadic design, shock durations generally decrease across trials during the pretreatment session as the master subject becomes increasingly efficient at executing the escape response (cf. Jackson & Minor, 1988;Job & Barnes, 1995;Minor & LoLordo, 1984). Subjects receiving yoked inescapable shock under these conditions usually show severe impairment ofshuttle-escape learning 24 h later. This helplessness effect also is observed folThis research was supported in part by a Sydney University Research Grant and an Australian Research Council Grant to R.ESJ. Reprint requests should be directed to T. Prabhakar, Department of Psychology, Sydney University, New South Wales 2006, Australia (e-mail: tashap@-psychvax.psych.su.oz).-Accepted by previous editor, Vincent M. LoLordo lowing preexposure to fixed-duration or randomly ordered variable-duration inescapable sho...

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of order of shock durations on helplessness in rats

Prabhakar

Job

1996

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Specifically, rats exposed to inescapable (uncontrollable) versus escapable (controllable) shocks exhibit time-limited enhancement (sensitization) of such stress-related processes as avoidance of cat odors (William & Groux, 1993), avoidance of novel situations and flavors (Job & Barnes, 1995; Minor, 1990), fear-conditioning (Desiderato & Newman, 1971), suppression of appetitive behaviors (Maier, unpublished data), and avoidance of social interactions (Short & Maier, 1993). Importantly, these effects of uncontrollable stress are likely due to non-associative sensitization as they occur in contexts with no apparent resemblance to the shock-delivery environment and, as such, are unlikely the result of contextual conditioning.…”

Section: Non-associative Fear-learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning models of PTSD: Theoretical accounts and psychobiological evidence

Lissek

Meurs

2015

International Journal of Psychophysiology

200

165

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Learning abnormalities have long been centrally implicated in posttraumatic psychopathology. Indeed of all anxiety disorders, PTSD may be most clearly attributable to discrete, aversive learning events. In PTSD, such learning is acquired during the traumatic encounter and is expressed as both conditioned fear to stimuli associated with the event and more general over-reactivity—or failure to adapt—to intense, novel, or fear-related stimuli. The relatively straightforward link between PTSD and these basic, evolutionarily old, learning processes of conditioning, sensitization, and habituation affords models of PTSD comprised of fundamental, experimentally tractable mechanisms of learning that have been well characterized across a variety of mammalian species including humans. Though such learning mechanisms have featured prominently in explanatory models of psychological maladjustment to trauma for at least 90 years, much of the empirical testing of these models has occurred only in the past two decades. The current review delineates the variety of theories forming this longstanding tradition of learning-based models of PTSD, details empirical evidence for such models, attempts an integrative account of results from this literature, and specifies limitations of, and future directions for, studies testing learning models of PTSD.

show abstract

“…First, it could be claimed that neophobia does not involve fear at all. Although the neophobic reaction resembles an avoidance response (the rat retreats from the bottle containing the novel flavored solution), and although neophobia has been found to be enhanced by fear in both rodents (Minor, 1990) and humans (Pliner et al, 1995), commonality with the mechanism underlying fear cannot be unequivocally asserted. Instead, neophobia might be viewed merely as reflecting wariness or reluctance, rather than real fear.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habituation of unconditioned fear can be attenuated by the presence of a safe stimulus: Assessment using the neophobic response of the rat

Pineño¹,

Zilski-Pineno²,

Miller³

2008

Behavioural Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Protection from extinction of conditioned fear has been demonstrated when a conditioned inhibitor of fear is presented during extinction treatment. The present study assessed if similar results could be obtained during the analogous habituation of unconditioned fear. The neophobic response typically elicited by the presentation of a novel flavor was used as a model of unconditioned fear. Consumption by rats was used to ascertain the impact of nonreinforced exposure to a novel flavor either alone, in compound with another novel flavor, or in compound with a safe flavor (i.e., a flavor previously trained as a conditioned inhibitor for illness). The presentation of the novel flavor alone in the absence of illness reduced neophobia. However, exposure to the novel flavor in compound with the safe flavor reduced habituation of neophobia. This effect was not observed when the novel flavor was exposed in compound with another novel flavor. These results suggest that removing safe stimuli from the therapeutical environment might improve the effectiveness of exposure therapy in the treatment of unconditioned fear.

show abstract

Conditioned fear and neophobia following inescapable shock

Cited by 44 publications

References 41 publications

The effects of order of shock durations on helplessness in rats

The effects of order of shock durations on helplessness in rats

Learning models of PTSD: Theoretical accounts and psychobiological evidence

Habituation of unconditioned fear can be attenuated by the presence of a safe stimulus: Assessment using the neophobic response of the rat

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About