Resistance to extinction as a function of variations in stimuli associated with shock.

Abstract

From the anxiety-reduction hypothesis it follows that if anxiety is conditioned to cues temporally contiguous with shock, then therapy will reduce anxiety to the degree to which it contains or preserves those cues. 96 male albino rats were given 105 trials in a single-unit T maze, with food reward in one of the goal boxes. During the last 65 trials, the experimental Ss were shocked at the choice point and arm of the maze. Ss of the control group were not shocked. Directly after the last trial, one-half of the Ss were fed at the locus of shock; the remaining one-half were placed at the locus of shock but not fed. No significant difference was found between the extinction scores of experimental (shock) Ss whose therapy situation contained a grid and those whose therapy situation did not; but when the maze color in the therapy situation was different from the maze color in the shock situation, the number of trials to extinction increased significantly. Since the extinction scores of the comparable control Ss did not differ significantly as a function of a change in maze color, the experimental hypothesis was supported.