Open AccessThe effect of on‐ or off‐line extinction of a first‐order conditioned stimulus on a second‐order conditioned response in rats[Note 1. This article was prepared by the second author and ...]
Author(s) -
Kaneshige Kota,
Nakajima Sadahiko,
Imada Hiroshi
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
japanese psychological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.392
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5884
pISSN - 0021-5368
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5884.00164
Subject(s) - licking , extinction (optical mineralogy) , classical conditioning , conditioning , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , unconditioned stimulus , fear conditioning , developmental psychology , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , amygdala , physics , mathematics , optics , endocrinology , biology , statistics
In a water‐licking experiment with rats, the effects of the extinction of a first‐order conditioned stimulus (CS1) on the suppression of licking established for a second‐order conditioned stimulus (CS2) were explored. Extinction of the first‐order conditioned response (CR1) attenuated the conditioned suppression induced by CS2 when the rats had been allowed to lick water during the CR1 extinction phase. However, if water had been unavailable during the CR1 extinction phase, suppression by CS2 was not affected. The latter result is consistent with other studies of rats' conditioned suppression and suggests that the underlying mechanism of second‐order conditioning in this experiment is a connection between CS2 and the response elicited by CS1 rather than a CS2‐CS1 connection. The former result was interpreted as the CR1 extinction phase encouraging the rats to lick water despite the fear elicited by CS1, and thus, in testing, they licked despite the fear elicited by CS2.