Effects of flooding an irrelevant response on the extinction of avoidance responses

Conducted 3 experiments with 90 male albino Fischer rats. Exp I shows that flooding a jump-up avoidance response can hasten the extinction of a shuttlebox avoidance response learned to a very different conditioned stimulus (CS). Exp II demonstrates that an irrelevant fear extinction experience can also hasten the extinction of a shuttlebox avoidance response. This supports the hypothesis that Pavlovian generalization of extinction of conditioned fear across CS modalities mediates the irrelevant flooding effect. Exp III shows that flooding a shuttlebox avoidance response does not hasten the extinction of a jump-up avoidance response learned to a different CS. Possible reasons for the asymmetry of the irrelevant flooding effect are discussed. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).