On the independence of stimulus evocation of fear and fear evocation of responses

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Abstract

Dogs in an experimental group were first trained in a shuttlebox on a free-operant avoidance response; then a second, discriminative avoidance response was trained in a second apparatus to a tone. Following criterion, the second avoidance response was “extinguished” through unsignaled. response-independent US presentations. Finally, the tone was presented in the shuttlebox as a test for residual fear. The tone produced as much facilitation of the free-operant avoidance responding as it did in two control groups; one control had not had the second avoidance response extinguished, while the other had received only Pavlovian conditioning in the second apparatus. Thus, the elimination of a discriminative avoidance response to a CS does not impair the CS's ability to control a second independent avoidance response. This result reflects and confirms the separability and independence of the CS-fear and fearavoidance response links hypothesized by two-process theories.

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This research was supported in part by a grant from NIMH (MH-13,558) to the first author and in part by grants from NSF (BMS 72-02353) and NICHD (HD-01136) to the Center for Research in Human Learning, University of Minnesota.

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