Mechanical facilitation of the action of response prevention (flooding) in rats

Abstract

Rats were trained to avoid intense electric shock and following learning, some groups were given a response-prevention (flooding) treatment. (Response prevention consisted of thwarting the avoidance response while forcing S to remain in the presence of the feared stimulus). The results confirmed that a brief period of response prevention which has been found effective in hastening the extinction of an avoidance response learned under mild shock motivation was not effective when intense shock was employed. Mechanically disrupting Ss' behaviour during response prevention (interfering with the occurrence of abortive avoidance activity or freezing while forcing exploration and locomotion about the feared situation) was found to increase markedly the efficacy of the response prevention treatment in producing extinction. These results were interpreted as support for the view that the occurrence of non-fear behaviour (“relaxation”) during response prevention was necessary for the treatment to be effective in hastening the extinction of the avoidance response.