A fundamental property of extinction is that the behavior that is suppressed during extinction can be unmasked through a number of postextinction procedures. Of the commonly studied unmasking procedures (spontaneous recovery, reinstatement, contextual renewal, and rapid reacquisition), rapid reacquisition is the only approach that allows a direct…

Safety signals provide "relief" through predicting the absence of an aversive event. At issue is whether these signals also act as instrumental reinforcers. Four experiments were conducted using a free-operant lever-press avoidance paradigm in which each press avoided shock and was followed by the presentation of a 5-sec auditory safety…

Two studies using an ABA design examined the Extinction and renewal of conditioned barpress suppression. Following lights-off and foot shock pairings in Context A, rats were placed in Context B and were given either a standard counterconditioning procedure where the lights-off CS was paired with a novel food US delivered freely or a modified…

It has been suggested that reduced infralimbic (IL) cortical activity contributes to impairments of fear extinction. We therefore explored whether pharmacological activation of the IL would facilitate extinction under conditions it normally fails (i.e., immediate extinction). Rats received auditory fear conditioning 1 h before extinction training.…

Extinction, a form of learning that has the ability to reshape learned behavior based on new experiences, has been heavily studied utilizing fear learning paradigms. Mechanisms underlying extinction of positive-valence associations, such as drug self-administration and place preference, are poorly understood yet may have important relevance to…

Research supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant PN-8086, and presented in part at the 1967 American Psychological Association Convention.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of positive attentional cues as cognitive factors in the modification of fear responses in a desensitization-like treatment procedure. Positive attentional cues are defined as positively-valenced descriptors of the feared stimulus. Two groups of two subjects each were assessed as to the…

Relaxation and semantic desensitization were used to alleviate the fear of phobic females. Results showed that semantic desensitization, alone or in combination with relaxation, failed to modify the evaluative meanings evoked by the feared object. (SE)

Forty-five youngsters rehearsed one of three types of mediating response, involving different types of sentences. Analyses revealed that different training significantly influenced duration and intensity settings, with the "competence" group generally superior to the "stimulus" and "neutral" verbalization groups. (Author)

High- and low-fear subjects were assigned to noise or false heart-rate feedback. Contiguity between the shock-snake stimuli was varied in order to provide a test of an aversion relief model. As was predicted, low-fear as compared to high-fear subjects approached the snake significantly more after exposure to false heart-rate feedback. (Author)

The subject-controlled graduated exposure of a snake with feedback of exposure times resulted in significantly less avoidance behaviors for snake-phobic subjects than for control snake-phobic subjects who did not receive therapy. (Author)

Studies the effectiveness of therapeutic modeling using dissimilar or similar models. Pre- and post-measures of fear were taken on behavioral and attitude dimensions. Behaviorally, model similarity in level of fear was unimportant, while similarity in age was. More similar models on either variable produced greater change in attitudes. (Author/SJL)

From 300 introductory psychology students, 40 female "snake phobics" were selected to test the hypothesis that distraction paired with fearful imagery is effective in alleviating the "phobia." Subjects were divided into three treatment groups and a control group: H+PI (fear hierarchy plus pleasant imagery as distraction), H+P…

The present paper describes a method combining thought stopping and covert assertion and reports its application in six case histories the majority of which would usually be classified as phobic rather than obsessional. The paper reports successful followups. (Author/LA)