Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 1984, Vol. 10, No.

3, 307-323

Copyright 1984 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

Fear Conditioned With Escapable and Inescapable Shock: Effects of a Feedback Stimulus
Susan Mineka, Michael Cook, and Stephanie Miller University of WisconsinMadison
Four experiments compared the level of fear conditioned with escapable versus inescapable shock. In Experiments 1 and 2, master subjects that had received 50 unsignaled escapable shocks were less afraid of the situation where the shock had occurred than were yoked subjects that had received inescapable shocks. Comparable results were found in Experiments 3 and 4, which used freezing as an index of fear of a discrete conditioned stimulus (CS) that had been paired with shock. Interestingly, control per se was not necessary to produce the low level of fear seen in the master subjects: Yoked groups receiving a feedback signal at the time the master made an escape response showed a low level of fear that was comparable to that of the masters and significantly less than that seen in the yoked.subjects without feedback. In addition, there were strong suggestions that control and feedback exert their effects through the same or highly similar mechanisms. Possible explanations for how control and the exteroceptive feedback signal produce this effect are discussed.

Over the past 15 years an enormous amount of research has been directed toward understanding the differential behavioral and physiological effects that stem from exposure to controllable as opposed to uncontrollable aversive events. The general conclusion has been that exposure to uncontrollable aversive events is considerably more stressful for the organism than is exposure to controllable aversive events. The greater stress has been indexed by a wide range of behavioral deficits and physiological changes, including impaired ability to learn control in subsequent tasks, passivity, lowered aggressiveness, alterations in levels of certain important neurotransmitters, ulcers, analgesia, and many others. (See Maier & Jackson, 1979; Maier & Seligman, 1976; Mineka & Kihlstrom, 1978; Overmier, Patterson, & Wielciwicz, 1980; Seligman, 1975, for reviews.)

This research was supported by grants to the first author from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School and by Grant BNS-7823612 from the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to thank Robert Hendersen, Tom Minor, and Mike Fanselow for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Requests for reprints should be sent to Susan Mineka, Department of Psychology, 1202 W. Johnson St., University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706.

The finding in this literature on uncontrollability that is of special interest for this article is that different levels of fear are conditioned to neutral stimuli paired with escapable as opposed to inescapable shock. Mowrer and Viek (1948) first reported this finding of fear from "a sense of helplessness," and it has since been replicated by Desiderate and Newman (1971), Brennan and Riccio (1975), and Osborne, Mattingly, Redmond, and Osborne (1975). In these three most recent studies researchers consistently found that rats that received signaled escapable shocks subsequently showed less suppression to the conditioned stimulus (CS) in a conditioned emotional response (CER) test than did their yoked partners receiving the same amount of inescapable shocks. Some limitations on the conclusions as to whether such differences actually reflect different levels of "fear" were, however, apparent in the Osborne et al. (1975) article. In particular, they found an opposite effect when using an escape from fear task as opposed to a CER task. In fact, their escapably preshocked rats learned to escape from fear faster than did their inescapably preshocked rats, and this result did not appear to be a simple function of differential activity levels. Unfortunately, Osborne et al. did not conclusively solve this apparent discrepancy in results when using

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the CER task as opposed to the escape from fear task as an index of fear. However, one possibility is that the inescapably preshocked animals were showing a typical learned helplessness or proactive interference effect on the escape from fear task that has an instrumental contingency unlike the CER task. One purpose of the present experiments was to provide a further demonstration that more fear is conditioned with inescapable shock by using a third measure of fear like the CER that does not have an instrumental component and that has not previously been used in this line of research. Therefore, in Experiments 1 and 2 the multivariate fear assessment techniques of Corriveau and Smith (1978) were used to assess differential levels of fear in escapably and inescapably preshocked rats. With these techniques seven interrelated measures of fear were used to assess the subject's willingness to leave a safe ledge and approach a grid floor where shock had previously occurred, as well as to assess the amount of time that was spent on the grid floor once an approach response had been made. These techniques have previously been shown to be quite sensitive in detecting different levels of fear following different amounts and types of flooding experiences following jump-up avoidance response training (Corriveau & Smith, 1978; Miller, Mineka, & Cook, 1982; Mineka, Miller, Gino, & Giencke, 1981). The second issue in the present experiments concerns the importance of control per se in producing the observed differences in fear conditioned with escapable as opposed to inescapable shock. To date, the results have generally been interpreted in terms of the increased aversiveness or stressfulness of uncontrollable shocks (e.g., Maier, Seligman, & Solomon, 1969; Seligman, Maier, & Solomon, 1971). In addition, Desiderata and Newman (1971) and Brennan and Riccio (1975) discussed the possibility that inescapable shocks may simply be more painful because of the yoked experimental design used in their experiments (Church, 1964). However, a third possible explanation for the results of such experiments is also possible and worthy of investigation. This third explanation stems from a theory proposed some years ago by Averill (1973), who argued that the beneficial effects of having control over the offset of aversive events stemmed primarily

from the added predictability inherent in having a controlling response, that is, organisms with control also know when the event will terminate and have a salient marker of the ensuing interval during which the aversive event will not occur. Although it seems unlikely that all of the beneficial effects that derive from control stem from this mechanism, Starr and Mineka (1977) did find evidence that a related mechanism might be involved in the differential levels of fear conditioned with controllable versus uncontrollable shock. In their second experiment Starr and Mineka found that yoked animals given a feedback signal when the master animal made its escape or avoidance response did not differ from their masters in levels of fear conditioned to the CS, although yoked animals without feedback were significantly more afraid than the other two groups. These results suggest that "control" per se is not necessary to observe the attenuation of fear frequently seen in well-trained avoidance learners (cf. Kamin, Brimer, & Black, 1963; Starr & Mineka, Experiment 1). Rather, feedback from the avoidance response itself appeared to be sufficient to produce the attenuation in yoked subjects who had no control. In addition, these results raised the interesting possibility that the differences in fear conditioned with escapable versus inescapable shock may also be due to the presence; versus absence of feedback rather than to the variable of control per se or to differences in amount of pain experienced by escapably versus inescapably shocked subjects. The following experiments were designed in part to test this hypothesis using two different paradigms for assessing fear. In the first two experiments Corriveau and Smith's (1978) multivariate fear assessment techniques described earlier were used with an unsignaled escape paradigm. In Experiments 3 and 4 freezing was used as an index of fear in a signaled escape paradigm where fear was assessed in a second context other than the one in which fear was conditioned. Experiment 1 Method Subjects and Apparatus
The subjects were 32 male albino rats of the Fischer strain obtained from Harlan Sprague-Dawley Company, Madison, Wisconsin. The animals were 90-120 days old

EFFECTS OF CONTROL AND FEEDBACK ON FEAR at the time of the experiment. They were housed individually and maintained on a reverse 12-hr light/12-hr dark cycle day. The experiment was conducted during the dark portion of the cycle. Throughout the experiment all subjects were maintained on ad-lib food and water. The apparatus consisted of two automated jump-up boxes obtained from Lafayette Company. In each box a 20.0 cm X 11.5 cm part of one wall retracted, revealing a 12.5 cm high X 20.0 cm wide X 12.5 cm deep ledge that was 8.5 cm above the grid floor. The main chamber was made of Plexiglas (two walls and the lid) and metal (the movable wall, the ledge compartment, and the wall opposite the ledge). The grid floor consisted of fourteen 0.48-cm stainless steel grids placed 1.6 cm apart (center to center) to which constant current scrambled shock of 0.7 mA intensity could be delivered. Each apparatus was enclosed in a 51.8 cm high X 78.7 cm wide X 40.7 cm deep sound-attenuating chamber constructed of/2 in, plywood and 1 in. styrofoam with a 50.5 cm X 29.0 cm Plexiglas observation window. Inside each of these chambers were two house-lights located 25.5 cm over the apparatus and a speaker for generating white noise that was also located 25.5 cm above the center of the apparatus. For each apparatus, a 21.0 cm X 20.0 cm removable Plexiglas barrier could be used to confine subjects on the ledge. The carrying/retaining boxes were plastic test cages, 29.0 cm X 18.0 cm X 13.0 cm, with wood shavings on the bottom and a wire grid lid for a top. All programming of experimental events and observations was carried out in the darkened experimental room. White noise at approximately 63 dB(A) was delivered into the apparatus at all times when subjects were in the experimental room.

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Procedure 1A
The 16 rats were divided into two groups of 8 subjects each. The group that received escape training was designated the master-no feedback (M-NFB) group. The second group was designated the yoked-no feedback (Y-NFB) group and received noncontingent shocks. Experimental chambers were counterbalanced across treatment groups. The experiment was divided into four phases: first ledge exposure, escape training, second ledge exposure, and fear observation. First ledge exposure. After each subject was placed on the ledge of its respective chamber, the Plexiglas barrier was inserted, thereby blocking the subject on the ledge. Subjects remained undisturbed on the ledge for 15 min in order to increase familiarity with the ledge as a safe place. Escape/yoked training. At the end of the 15 min of ledge exposure the barriers were removed, and the movable wall was pushed forward so that the ledge was now only 2.5 cm deep (not enough for the subjects to rest on). This wall movement also served to push the subjects onto the grid floor. During the next 75 min subjects were exposed to a series of fifty 0.7-mA shocks presented on a VT 90s geometric schedule (range 60-128 s). The master rat (MNFB) could turn off the shock after 1 s by depressing the ledge (the shock also terminated at 1 s if the ledge was still depressed at that time from a response made prior to 1 s). The yoked (Y-NFB) animals received the same temporal pattern of shocks as did their partners; however, their response manipulandum was disconnected. In other

words, the response of the rat in the M-NFB group determined the shock duration for its yoked partner. If the M-NFB rat failed to terminate the shock within 30 s, it was terminated automatically for both groups. " Second ledge exposure (time out). After the last escape trial, the wall was retracted to its original position, and subjects were again blocked on the ledge by the Plexiglas barrier for 15 min. Fear observation. The time out was followed by a 1hr assessment of the subjects' fear of the grid floor using the observational techniques developed by Corriveau and Smith (1978) and later used by Mineka et al. (1981), and by Miller et al. (1982). The barrier was removed, and both M-NFB and Y-NFB subjects were simultaneously observed by a trained experimenter. The seven dependent variables were as follows: Approach latency (AL)the time in seconds it initially took the subjects to leave the ledge for the grid floor. Safety-test latency (SL)the time it took the subjects to make the initial safety test (1-2 paws or nose touching the grid floor). If the subject approached the grid floor without a safety test, this score was identical to the approach latency score. Number of safety tests before first approach (FST) the total number of safety tests that occurred before the first complete departure from the ledge. Total number of safety tests (STT)ihe total number of safety tests that occurred over the course of the 60-min session. (This measure was not used by Corriveau and Smith.) Total number of approaches (NA)the number of times the subject went back and forth from the ledge to the grids. Time initially spent on the grids after the first approach (FG)the total amount of time in seconds spent on the grids after the first approach and befqre the first return to the ledge (recorded because all subjects that approached the grids at least once also returned to the ledge after the first approach). The subjects that never left the ledge received a 0 for this measure. Total grid time (TG)the total amount of time in seconds that each subject spent on the grids during the 1-hr observation phase. All of these dependent measures were handscored by the experimenter. Periodic reliability tests were made with a second observer present. The interrater reliability checks revealed the intraclass correlations to be over .993 for each of the dependent variables (M = .997; cf. Tinsley & Weiss, 1975).

Procedure IB
Sixteen more rats were divided into two groups of 8 rats each. All phases of this experiment were identical to Experiment 1A for the M-NFB group given escape training. However, the yoked group, designated yoked feedback (YFB), received an exteroceptive feedback stimulus at the shock offset that consisted of the house-lights going off for 3 s.

Results As found by Mineka et al. (1981), inspection of the data revealed mild to severe heterogeneity of variance for five of seven measures

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(except for FST and STT). In addition, all measures had distributions that were severely skewed and clearly not normal in the tails. Therefore, for all measures for this experiment and for Experiment 2, t tests and analyses of variance (ANOVAS) were performed on transformed scores. Negative reciprocal transformations of the form 11 - were found X + 10, to make the data most amenable to ANOVA statistics on the basis of three criteria (cf. Mosteller & Tukey, 1977, chapter 5): (a) These transforms reduced the heterogeneity of variance; (b) they made the distributions more symmetric; (c) they produced a pattern where the means of the transformed scores paralleled the pattern of medians of the raw scores. (See Mineka et al, 1981^ for further discussion.) In addition, safety test and approach latency scores were converted to minutes before the negative reciprocal transformations were made because of the large number of high scores (e.g., 3,600). The data were also analyzed with nonparametric statistics, and the same pattern of results was found except where noted below. Experiment 1A Escape training. All subjects learned the escape response very rapidly. Unfortunately, only a cumulative record of the total amount of shock was available, and so the course of escape learning could not be examined (but see Experiments 3 and 4 for relevant results). The average amount of shock received was 1.086 s per trial (1-s minimum). Fear testing. The t tests revealed significant differences (p < .05) between the M-NFB animals and the Y-NFB animals for six of the seven measures. The M-NFB group safety tested and approached the grid floor more quickly, te(14) = -3.12 and -3.31 for SL and AL, respectively. The M-NFB group also was found to spend more time on the grid floor both overall and on their first approach, ft(14) = 3.92 and 2.37 for TO and FG, respectively. These differences are depicted in Figures 1 and 2. Finally, the M^NFB group made more total safety tests and approaches than their yoked partners, but the number of safety tests before the first approach did not differ between the two groups, ft(14) = 2.91, 3.07,0.69 for STT, NA, and FST, respectively.

SL
Figure 1. Means of the transformed, 1 - [10/(X + 10)], safety-test latency (SL) and approach latency (AL) scores for the four groups of Experiments 1A and IB. (MNFB = master-no feedback group; YFB = yokedfeedback group; YNFB = yoked-no feedback group.)

It should also be noted that the results of nonparametric Mann-Whitney U tests confirmed this pattern of results except that the difference for FG was not significant. Experiment IB The t tests showed no significant differences between the M-NFB group and the Y-FB group, all ft(14) < 1.0, for any of the seven measures. Mann-Whitney U tests also revealed no significant differences, Discussion The results of Experiment 1A revealed that the M-NFB group was significantly less afraid than the Y-NFB group on six of seven interrelated measures of fear that have previously been shown to be sensitive in detecting the effects of other manipulations designed to reduce fear (Corriveau & Smith, 1978; Miller et al., 1982; Mineka et al., 1981). Thus an additional set of measures of fear other than the CER has been shown to reflect the phenomenon of "fear from a sense of helplessness" first identified by Mowrer and Viek (1948). Because at least some of these measures do not have an, instrumental contingency (e.g., safety and approach latencies), these results lend further support to the hypothesis suggested in the introduction regarding Osborne et al.'s (1975) opposite results using an escape

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this by having two groups yoked to the MNFB group, one Y-FB group receiving feedback when the M-NFB group responded (as in Experiment IB) and one Y-NFB group receiving no such feedback (as in Experiment 1A). Experiment 2 Method Subjects and Apparatus
1B TQ
Figfire 2. Means of the transformed, 1 - [10/(X + 10)], first grid (FG) and total grid (TG) time scores for the four groups of Experiments 1A and IB. (MNFB = master-no feedback group; YFB = yoked-feedback group; YNFB = yoked-no feedback group.) The subjects were 36 male Fischer rats obtained from Harlan Sprague-Dawley Company, Madison, Wisconsin. They were 90-120 days old at the time of the experiment and were housed under conditions identical to those described for Experiment 1. The apparatus consisted of the same two jump-up boxes with their sound-attenuating chambers described in Experiment 1 and an additional jump-up box with soundattenuating chamber constructed at the University of Wisconsin. In this third jump-up box a 21.3 cm X 11.0 cm part of one wall retracted revealing a 11.0 cm high X 21.3 cm wide X 13.0 cm deep ledge that was 7.8 cm above the grid floor. The main chamber was made of Plexiglas (two walls and the lid) and metal (the movable wall, the ledge compartment, and the wall opposite the ledge). The grid* floor consisted of seventeen 0.2-cm stainless steel grids placed 1.2 cm apart (center to center), to which constant current scrambled shock of 0.7 mA intensity could be delivered. Although this box differed slightly from those used in Experiment 1, the differences were within 1 cm for all dimensions. Further, a main effect for boxes was never found to be significant. The sound-attenuating chamber, Plexiglas barrier, and carrying/retaining box were identical to those in Experiment 1.

from fear task that does have an instrumental contingency. In particular, these results suggest that more fear is indeed conditioned to stimuli paired with inescapable as opposed to escapable shock. Failures to find this effect may be due to the use of indices of fear that have an instrumental contingency, thus allowing a proactive interference effect from the inescapable shock to obscure such differences. The results of Experiment IB also lend preliminary support to the hypothesis suggested in the introduction that control per se may not be the variable of importance in producing the different levels of fear conditioned with escapable versus inescapable shock. In this experiment we found that the yoked subjects given a feedback stimulus (Y-FB group) when the master subjects made their escape response showed levels of fear comparable to that of the M-NFB group even though they had had no control over the shock. Thus, as in Starr and Mineka's (1977) second experiment using an avoidance paradigm, it seems that the added predictability or feedback inherent in making the response may be sufficient to produce the reduced level of fear seen with controllable shock. However, before taking this hypothesis too seriously, we deemed it necessary to replicate the findings of Experiments 1A and IB using a triadic design rather than the two-group designs of these preliminary experiments. Therefore, Experiment 2 was designed to do

Procedure
There were two groups comparable to those in Experiment 1A (M-NFB and Y-NFB) and a third group comparable to the Y-FB group in Experiment IB. Thus, the master controlled the shock duration for both yoked groups, one of which received the lights-off feedback stimulus. The groups were labeled M-NFB, Y-NFB, and Y-FB. The MNFB group was run in one of the two identical Lafayette boxes but not in the third box because the ledge tension was slightly different in that box. The two yoked groups were run randomly in all three boxes.

Results Escape Training All subjects learned the escape response very rapidly as in Experiment 1. The average shock duration per trial was 1.15 s. Fear Testing The data revealed heterogeneity and skewedness similar to that in Experiments 1A and

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IB. Therefore, the same negative reciprocal transformations f 1 - , . ,\ were employed here. ANOVAS showed significant differences (ps < .05) for the safety latency measure, F(2, 33) = 5.82, and for both grid time measures, Fs(2, 33) = 4.32 and 4.36, for FG and TG respectively. Post hoc comparisons (Duncan, a = .05) revealed that although the M-NFB and Y-FB groups did not differ from each other, they both were significantly different from the Y-NFB group. Animals in Groups M-NFB and Y-FB safety tested sooner and spent more time on the grids than did their Y-NFB partners. These results are illustrated in Figures 3 and 4. ANOVAS examining the number of safety tests (FST and STT), approach latency, and the number of approaches revealed no significant differences, Fs(2,33) <, 1.81. Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis and

x + 10;

Figure 4. Means of the transformed, 1 - [10/(X + 10)], first grid (FG) and total grid (TG) time scores for the three groups of Experiment 2. (MNFB = master-no feedback group; YFB = yoked-feedback group; YNFB = yoked-no feedback group.)

0.2 0.1 0.0 Figure 3. Means of the transformed, 1 - [10/(X + 10)], safety latency (SL) scores for the three groups of Experiment 2. (MNFB = master-no feedback group; YFB = yoked-feedback group; YNFB = yoked-no feedback group.)

Mann-Whitney U tests confirmed this pattern of results except for one small difference. A Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that there were significant group differences in the number of approaches. Discussion The results of Experiment 2 replicate those of Experiments 1A and IB using a more elegant triadic design. Three of the six measures indicating less fear in the master group than in the yoked group of Experiment 1A also revealed less fear in the M-NFB group than in the Y-NFB group of Experiment 2. These same measures also revealed no significant differences in fear between the M-NFB and YFB groups just as in the equivalent groups of Experiment IB. Finally, comparisons of the Y-NFB and Y-FB groups revealed significant differences on these same three measures of fear, with the Y-FB group in each case being less fearful than the Y-NFB group. Of the three measures that had revealed group differences in Experiment 1A and not here, only two of these have generally been found to be a sensitive measure of fear in our previous research using Corriveau and Smith's techniques. We have generally found the number of safety tests to be an unreliable index that also does not correlate highly with the other indices (see Miller et al., 1982; Mineka et al., 1981). Therefore, we do not find it sur-

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prising that no group differences were found with this measure in Experiment 2. By contrast, however, approach latency and the total number of approaches are generally sensitive measures, and so the failure to find significant group differences with these measures in Experiment 2 is somewhat puzzling and has no ready explanation. Nevertheless, the similar pattern of results for the other three measures of fear in Experiments 1 and 2 suggests that less fear is indeed conditioned with escapable than with inescapable shock and that control per se is not necessary to produce this effect. Instead, mimicking the feedback that comes from making an escape response by delivering an exteroceptive feedback signal to yoked subjects (Y-FB groups) seems to be sufficient to produce the lowered level of fear characteristic of subjects that actually do have control. It should be noted, however, that the paradigm used to produce the effects seen in Experiments 1 and 2 is considerably different from the paradigms used in the previous experiments on fear conditioned with escapable versus inescapable shock. Not only were different measures of fear used than in previous experiments but also the shocks were unsignaled in our experiments, and so fear of the entire situation (grid floor and surrounding area) was being assessed in the fear test. In all other experiments in this area, fear was conditioned to a discrete CS, and fear of that CS was then assessed in either the same or a different context. Thus, the possibility exists that the effects we have seen of adding a feedback stimulus to our yoked subjects are somehow limited to our particular paradigm using unsignaled shock and/or Corriveau and Smith's fear assessment techniques. Therefore, Experiment 3 was designed with the goal of replicating the same effects seen in Experiments 1 and 2 in a paradigm more like that used in previous experiments in this area. The escape/yoked training was still carried out in the modified jump-up apparatus used in Experiments 1 and 2, but the shocks were now preceded by a 20-s auditory CS. In the fear testing phase, fear of the CS was assessed in a context different from where it bad been conditioned. Freezing during the CS and postCS period was used as the index of fear rather than a traditional CER task. As reported by

Bouton and Bolles (1979) and Bolles and Collier (1976), freezing can be a highly reliable index of fear when the observations are made by well-trained observers. In fact, in our laboratory we have found it to be preferable to CER testing for three reasons. First, it is more cost efficient because of the obviation of 5-7 days of operant barpress pretraining; second, data are not frequently lost on a test day because the operant baseline has been destroyed after the presentation of several fear-eliciting CSs; third, we have found freezing to be more sensitive in detecting group differences following a variety of manipulations than are the traditional CER techniques we have used previously (e.g., Mineka & Gino, 1980; Starr & Mineka, 1977). Experiment 3 Method Subjects and Apparatus
The subjects were 36 male albino rats of the Fischer strain obtained from Harlan Sprague-Dawley Company, Madison, Wisconsin. The animals were 90-130 days old at the time of the experiment and were housed under conditions identical to those described for Experiment 1. The escape training phase of the experiment utilized the three jump-up boxes and their sound-attenuating enclosures that were described in Experiment 2. The movable wall of the jump-up boxes was always kept in the forward position leaving a 2.5-cm deep ledge. The enclosures were modified in the following manner: A Sonalert (Model SC 628) was mounted 3.5 cm above the center of the ceiling of the two jump-up boxes obtained from Lafayette Company and 2 cm above the center of the ceiling of the box constructed at the University of WisconsinMadison. (This slight difference was necessary because of the slightly different shape and size of the third jump-up box.) Each Sonalert was capable of delivering a 2900-Hz tone (interrupted 4.5 times/s and on for 70% of a given second) at a noise level of 95 dB(A) against a background of 63 dB(A). This tone served as the CS. A 0.6-mA scrambled shock, delivered by a constant current source to the grid floor, served as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Additionally, CS habituation and fear testing were conducted in three identical Gerbrands operant conditioning chambers. Each measured 22 cm high X 22.5 cm wide X 19.5 cm deep and had an inoperative response lever located to the left of a recessed food magazine. A Sonalert (Model SC 628) was mounted 3.5 cm above the center of the ceiling in each conditioning chamber, delivering a 2900-Hz tone (interrupted 4.5 times/s and on for 70% of a given second) at a noise level of 96 dB( A) against a background of 56 dB(A). Each operant chamber was enclosed in a 61 cm high X 68 cm wide X 55 cm deep sound-attenuating chamber obtained from Industrial Acoustics Company. A 29 cm high X 44 cm long one-way mirror located on the front of each sound-attenuating

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S. MINEKA, M. COOK, AND S, MILLER subjects in the M-NFB group. A response resulted ih the cotermination of the CS and US (after the 1-s minimum shock duration). Shocks that were not terminated by a response within 30 s following their onset were automatically terminated by the programming equipment. Subjects in the Y-NFB group received identical exposure to CSs and USs as their masters but had no control over CS or US termination. Subjects in the Y-FB ;group received a 3-s light-off feedback stimulus when their master responded as well as identical exposure to the CSs and USs. Fear testing. On each of Days 3-5, at approximately 24-hr intervals, each subject was reintroduced to the operant chamber in which it had been habituated. On each day after approximately 7 min, the first tone was presented. On Days 3 and 4 a total of eight 20-s tones were presented on a VT 7-min geometric schedule (range: 390-451 s), whereas on Day 5 only four 20-s tones were presented (on the same schedule). Further, the same point-sampling technique employed during habituation was used during Trials 1-4 on Days 3-5 (i.e., behavior was not observed/ recorded for the last four trials on Days 3 and 4). Three experimenters were involved in the observation of the subjects' behavior during habituation and fear testing; therefore, some measure of interrater reliability was necessary. Because of limitations of space in the experimental room, only two observers could be present during a given reliability-assessment session. For this reason Fleiss' generalization of Cohen's statistic, kappa, was used to determine category agreement in the case where subjects are observed and rated by different pairs of raters (Cohen, I960; Fleiss, 1971). In the present case, the reliability sessions, encompassing 440 individual 'point-sample observations and involving all raters, resulted in K = .91. When the freezing category was considered alone K = .91. Both results are significant, p < .01.

chamber allowed observation of the subjects by an experimenter situated within the darkened experimental room. A 40-W light bulb, mounted within a translucent panel on the interior ceiling of each sound-attenuating chamber, 7 cm above the ceiling of the operant chamber, served as illumination. A 100-mA, 28-V, red miniature light bulb, also mounted on the front of the sound-attenuating chamber (so that it was unobservable by the subject within the operant chamber), served as a timing cue to the observer situated near the enclosure (see Procedure section). Programming of experimental events concerning the operant conditioning chambers was done automatically by relay equipment located in an adjacent room.

Procedure
Three groups of subjects were run with n = 12 in each treatment group. One to 2 days prior to the first day of experimentation all subjects were briefly handled and their tails marked so that the experimenter could distinguish between them. The experiment was divided into three phases over the course of 5 days. Habituation. On Day 1 each subject was placed in an operant chamber and allowed approximately 3-5 min to habituate to it before the first tone was presented. A total of sixteen 20-s tones were presented on a variable time (VT) 4-min geometric schedule (range: 176-317 s). This phase allowed for the habituation of any unconditioned properties of the tone to occur. During each trial (presentation of a tone) the experimenter observed and recorded the subject's behavior 12 times at 5-s intervals using a point-sampling technique. Of the 12 point-sample observations, 4 were recorded during the 20 s immediately preceding onset of the tone (designated Period A), 4 during the 20 s the tone was on (Period B), and the last 4 during the 20 s immediately following the offset of the tone (Period C). The onset of the red miniature lamp bulb (mounted on the front of the sound-attenuating enclosure) served to cue the observer as to when the behavior sample was to be taken and recorded. The subject's behavior was divided into one of four mutually exclusive categories: (a) freezingabsence of skeletal movement except for that due to respiration or minimal vibrassae movement, (b) sleepingdefined identically to freezing with the additional requirement that the subject's eyes be completely or almost completely closed, (c) groomingany licking, scratching, or rubbing of any part of the body, and (d) otherall behavior falling outside of the three previous categories. For purposes of the present experiment only the freezing category, was considered to be of interest, and so only the results from the freezing data are presented. Escape training. On Day 2, approximately 24 hr following habituation, escape training was initiated. Subjects were run in triads, each member of the triad- randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups, master-no feedback (M-NFB), yoked-feedback (Y-FB), and yokedno feedback (Y-NFB), After being placed on the grid floor, the subjects remained undisturbed for 30 min. They, were then exposed to 50 shock trials presented on a VT 60-s geometric schedule (range: 30-106 s). Each trial consisted of a 20-s tone CS followed by the onset of shock delivered to the grids. The shock was programmed to last a minimum of 1 s before it could be terminated by a response by

Results Habituation
For the analysis of the habituation data, the number of freezing responses made by each subject was determined for each of the 16 trials. Fof any given trial the maximum number of freezing responses that could be recorded was 12 (four point-sample observations for each of the three periods). These responses were subdivided according to which of the three periods they occurred in. The average number of freezing responses across all 16 trials was analyzed in a 3 (group: M-NFB, YFB, Y-NFB) X 3 (period) mixed-design ANOVA, with group as a between-groups factor and period as a repeated measure. The analysis revealed no significant effects.

Escape Training
Changes in the latency to escape for the M-NFB group were analyzed in a one-way re-

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PERIOD A

PERIODS

PERIOD C

DAYS
Figure 5. Mean number of freezing responses per day for each of the three groups of Experiment 3, summed across the test trials of each day, separately for Periods A, .B, and C. (MNFB = master-no feedback group; YFB = yoked-feedback group; YNFB = yoked-no feedback group; Period A - 20 s before tone onset; Period B = 20 s during tone; Period C = 20 s after tone offset.)

peated measures ANOVA, with five trials in each of 1.0 blocks. The analysis revealed a significant effect of the repeated measure, F(9, 99) = 25.94, p < .01. Subsequent Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that latencies were significantly longer on the first trial block than on any subsequent block (2-10), longer on the second trial block than on subsequent blocks (3-10), longer on the third trial block than on Blocks 5-10, longer on the fourth block than on Blocks 6, 8, 9 and 10, and longer on the fifth block than on Blocks 9 and 10. Fear Testing The data consisted of 12 trials, 4 presented per day for 3 days. As for the habituation data, the number of freezing responses recorded for each subject was summed over the 4 trials of a given session and was further broken down according to what period the behavior had occurred in. Thus for a given session (day) and a given period, the maximum possible number of freezing responses that could be recorded was 16 (4 Trials X 4 Point-Sample Observations per period). These data were analyzed

as a 3 (group: M-NFB, Y-FB, Y-NFB) X 3 (period) X 3 (day) mixed-design ANOVA. Significant main effects were found for all three factors, F(2, 33) = 24.10 for the group effect, F(2, 66) = 74.87 for the period effect, and F(2, 66) - 45.16, p < .01 for the day effect. There were also significant Group X Period, F(4, 66) = 10.01, and Period X Day interactions, F(4, 132) = 11.93, ps < .01. Analysis* of the Period X Day interaction revealed significant simple main effects for day during Period A, F(2, 70) = 8.86, during Period B, F(2, 70) = 36.61, during Period C, F(2, 70) = 38.04, ps < .01. These results are illustrated in Figure 5. Subsequent Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that during Periods B and C levels of freezing were higher on Day 1 than on Days 2 and 3 and higher on Day 2 than on Day 3. During Period A, freezing levels were higher on Day 1 than on Days 2 and 3, which did not differ. Analysis of the Group X Period interaction revealed significant simple main effects for group during Period B, F(2, 33) = 22.73, p< .01, and during Period C, F(2,33) = 18.69, p < .01, but not during period A, F(2, 33) =

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1.42. Duncan's post hoc comparison's revealed that the Y-NFB group showed significantly more freezing than did the M-NFB and Y-FB groups during Periods B and C, but the latter two groups did not differ significantly. In addition, analysis of simple main effects for period and Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that all three groups showed elevations in freezing during both Periods B and C over that seen in Period A, Fs(2, 22) ;> 12.17, ps < .01. Groups M-NFB and Y-FB also showed more freezing during Period C than during Period B.

Discussion

The results of Experiment 3 confirm and extend those of Experiments 1 and 2. Using signaled instead of unsignaled shocks, testing for fear in a different context than that in which it has been conditioned, and using freezing as an index of fear, we again found higher levels of fear in Y-NFB subjects than in M-NFB subjects. In addition, Y-FB subjects were again comparable in levels of fear to their masters. Thus it does not seem that the results seen in Experiments 1 and 2 are somehow peculiar to the unsignaled shock paradigm used there and/ or to the use of Corriveau and Smith's fear assessment techniques. Given that we have repeatedly found MNFB and Y-FB subjects to show comparable levels of fear, an important question arises as to whether control for master subjects and feedback for yoked subjects are exerting their effects through the same or a highly similar mechanism. They do both provide a salient cue that shock termination has occurred and that a long shock-free interval will follow. Thus, for example, both the escape response and the feedback stimulus may become strong inhibitors of fear. Nevertheless, there certainly also are differences between the role that an escape response can serve and the role that a feedback stimulus can serve. An escape response begins during shock and ends either simultaneously with shock or somewhat later; thus as the animal initiates the response, it "knows" that shock will terminate and when it will termiExperiment 4 nate, as well as that a long shock-free interval Method will follow. By contrast, a feedback stimulus provides no information about when shock Subjects and Apparatus will terminate or even that shock will termiThe subjects were 36 male albino rats like those described nate. Furthermore, the onset of the feedback for the previous experiments. The apparatus was identical stimulus is redundant with shock termination to that described for Experiment 3.

in that both provide information that a long shock-free interval will follow. Thus, it is possible that control and feedback are producing their effects on reducing fear through quite different mechanisms. For example, perhaps a feedback stimulus simply disrupts rehearsal of the CS-US association (Wagner, 1976, 1978), which results in a lower asymptote of conditioning for Y-FB groups as compared to Y-NFB groups. In that case, it could still be argued that control reduces fear for one of the independent reasons discussed earlier, for example, by reducing the stressfulness of the shock (Maier et al., 1969; Seligman et al., 1971). If control and feedback are producing their effects through different mechanisms, then one might expect to see an effect of feedback on master subjects as well. Thus, for example, if feedback disrupts rehearsal of the CS-US association, one would expect that master subjects given feedback would show lower levels of fear than the master subjects in our previous experiments that were not given feedback. If, on the other hand, control and feedback produce their effects through the same or a highly similar mechanism, then one would expect that giving a feedback stimulus to master subjects would not have any further effect on reducing fear in these subjects compared to master subjects without feedback. In other words, if control and feedback do exert their effects through the same mechanism, one would not expect them to have additive effects. A first attempt to test between these two alternatives can be made, then, by examining what happens to master subjects given a feedback stimulus. This was done in Experiment 4 by running three groups in a design identical to that for Experiment 3 except that the master subjects were given a feedback stimulus (just like that given to the Y-FB groups of the previous experiments) every time they made a successful escape response. The two yoked groups, Y-FB and Y-NFB, were analogous to those of the previous experiments.

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Procedure
The procedure was identical to that described for Experiment 3 except that the subjects in the master group (M-FB) received a 3-s lights-off feedback stimulus every time they made a successful escape response. One yoked group (Y-FB) also received this feedback stimulus, and one yoked group (Y-NFB) did not. Interrater reliability was very comparable to that for Experiment 3.

Results and Discussion Habituation The habituation data were analyzed in a 3 (group) X 3 (period) mixed-design ANOVA as for Experiment 3. The analysis revealed a significant main effect for period, F(2,66) = 9.45, p < .01. Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed this effect to be the result of lower levels of free/ing during Period B than during Periods A and C. Escape Training As in Experiment 3, latency data for the M-FB group were analyzed in a one-way reeated measures ANOVA with 10 blocks of five trials each as the repeated measure. The analysis revealed a significant effect of the repeated measure, F(9,99) = 19.51, p < .01. Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that latencies were longer on the first trial block than on any subsequent trial block. There were also some other minor random differences that were significant: Latencies on Block 2 were longer than on Blocks 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9; on Block 3 they were longer than on Blocks 5 and 9; on Block 10 they were longer than on Block 9; and on Block 7 they were longer than on Block 5. Fear Testing As in Experiment 3, the data consisted of 12 trials, 4 presented per day for 3 days. The data were analyzed in a 3 (group) X 3 (period) X 3 (day) mixed-design ANOVA. Significant main effects were found for all three factors, F(2, 33) = 15.60 for the group effect, F(2, 66) = 97.94 for the period effect, and F(2, 66) = 65.17 for the day effect, ps < .01. There were also significant Group X Period, F(4, 66) = 6.85, p < .01, Group X Day, .F(4, 66) = 2.96, p < .05, and Period X Day, F(4, 132) = 15.08, p < .01, interactions. The Group X Period X Day triple interaction fell just short of statistical significance, F($, 132) =

1.95, p = .058. These results are illustrated in Figure 6. Analysis of the Group X Period interaction revealed significant simple main effects for group during Period B, F(2, 33) =19.61, and during Period C, F(2, 33) = 10.94, ps < .01, but not during Period A, F(2, 33) = 2.84. Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that during Periods B and C the M-FB and Y-FB groups showed lower levels of freezing than the Y-NFB groups, but they did not differ from each other. In addition, analysis of simple main effects for period and Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that all three groups showed higher levels of freezing during Period C than during Periods A and B, Fs(2, 22) ;> 9.03, ps < .01. Groups M-FB and Y-NFB also showed higher levels of freezing during Period B than during Period A. Group Y-FB showed a significant elevation only during Period B on Day 1 of testing. Analysis of the Period X Day interaction revealed significant simple main effects of day for each period, Fs(2, 70) z> 4.38, pi < .05. Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that freezing declined significantly from Day 1 to Day 2 and from Day 2 to Day 3 during Periods B and C. However, during Period A levels of freezing were slightly greater on Days 1 and 2 than on Day 3, but Days 1 and 2 did not differ. Analysis of the Group X Day interaction revealed significant simple main effects for day for each group, Fs(2, 22) ;> 11.42, ps < .01. Duncan's post hoc comparisons revealed that levels of freezing declined significantly from Day 1 to Day 2 and from Day 2 to Day 3 for the Y-FB and Y-NFB groups. However, for the M-FB group freezing was comparable on Days 1 and 2 but declined on Day 3. Comparisons of Experiments 3 and 4 Although Experiments 3 and 4 were not run concurrently, they were run in close succession (6 weeks apart) and the methods were identical. Therefore, given some of the questions raised earlier, it seemed appropriate to make some cross-experiment comparisons. A 2 (experiment) X 3 (group) X 3 (period) mixed-design ANOVA on habituation data revealed a significant main effect of experiment, F(l, 66) = 20.27, a significant main effect of period, F(2, 132) = 9.10, and a significant

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Experiment X Period interaction, F(2, 132), ps < .01. Overall, levels of freezing during habituation were higher in Experiment 4 than in Experiment 3, and in Experiment 4 levels of freezing were lower during Period B than during Periods A and C. The meaning of these differences in habituation is unclear; however, the fact that there were no cross-experiment differences during Period A of fear testing (see next paragraph) suggests their significance is not great. For escape training a 2 (experiment) X 10 (block) mixed-design ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of block, F(9, 198) = 43.63, and a significant Experiment X Block interaction, F(l, 198) = 4.67, ps < .01. The interaction was the result of escape latencies being longer (although not significantly so) during Blocks 1 and 2 of Experiment 3 than of Experiment 4. In addition, latencies were slightly but significantly longer during Experiment 4 than during Experiment 3 on Blocks 6-10 (approximately 2.0 s vs. 1.6 s). Whether these small differences were a function of the PERIOD A

presence of feedback stimulus for the M-FB ^subjects in Experiment 4 is unclear. Finally, and most important, for fear testing a 2 (experiment) X 3 (group) X 3 (period) X 3 (day) mixed-design ANOVA revealed no significant main effects or interactions involving the experiment factor. Thus there was no indication that the M-FB subjects of Experiment 4 showed lower levels of fear than the M-NFB subjects of Experiment 3. Examination of Figures 5 and 6 confirms this impression. Discussion Conclusions regarding the comparisons between Experiments 3 and 4 should be drawn with some caution because the two experiments were not run concurrently and because there were some slight differences between the experiments in levels of freezing during habituation. In addition, although there were no overall differences in the amount of shock received in the two experiments, the pattern of escape latencies in the two experiments was PERIOD C

PERIOD B

DAYS
Figure 6. Mean number of freezing responses per day for each of the three groups of Experiment 4, summed across the test trials of each day, separately for Periods A, B, and C. (MFB = master-feedback group; YFB = yoked-feedback group; YNFB = yoked-no feedback group; Period A = 20 s before tone onset; Period B = 20 s during tone; Period C = 20 after tone offset.)

EFFECTS OF CONTROL AND FEEDBACK ON FEAR

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slightly different, with the M-NFB group of Experiment 3 showing longer latencies at the outset of training and slightly shorter latencies at the end of training than the M-FB group of Experiment 4. However, because there were no overall differences in amount of shock received in the two experiments and because levels of freezing did not differ between experiments during Period A of fear testing, it seems safe to draw at least some tentative conclusions regarding the cross-experiment comparisons. In particular, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that feedback and control exert their effects through the same or highly similar mechanisms. Because master subjects with feedback showed levels of fear that were very comparable to those shown by master subjects without feedback, it does not appear to be the case that exteroceptive feedback exerts an effect on reducing fear over and above that produced by an escape response.1 If exteroceptive feedback were producing its effect on reducing fear through a different mechanism than does an escape response, then one would expect there to have been additive effects, that is, M-FB subjects would show lower levels of freezing than M^NFB subjects.

General Discussion
The results of all four experiments concur in supporting earlier conclusions regarding the amount of fear that is conditioned to neutral stimuli paired with escapable versus inescapable shock. Using both signaled and unsignaled shock and several different indices of fear, we have consistently found less fear in groups receiving escapable as opposed to inescapable shock. However, just as consistently we have also found that control per se is not necessary to produce the lower level of fear characteristic of the groups with control. Indeed, simply mimicking the response of the master subject by presentation of an exteroceptive feedback signal is sufficient to produce the lower level of fear in groups that have no control over the shock. Thus it appears that feedback does not have to derive from a response contingency in order to be effective in attenuating fear (see also Starr & Mineka, 1977; Morris, 1975; Weisman & Litner, 1972). Instead, it seems that the role of feedback in reducing fear derives from its Pavlovian (i.e., temporal) rela-

tionship to the CS and the US rather than from its relation to the response per se. It should be noted that this conclusion is contrary to that drawn by Weiss (1971) and Bolles (1971), who argued that the efficacy of feedback in reducing stress or facilitating avoidance learning must stem from the intrinsic relation between feedback and performing a response, that is, the response must inform the animal that it has effected a change in its environment. The interesting question that remains is, of course, through what possible mechanism proprioceptive or exteroceptive feedback results in lowered levels of fear. One possible mechanism suggested by Starr and Mineka (1977) for their related results in an avoidance context is that a feedback stimulus (FS) may reduce the level of fear conditioned to the CS by reducing the functional intensity of the US. In particular, the FS (and the escape response) may partially inhibit the fear reaction that would otherwise persist for some seconds following the termination of the US. Although such an explanation would not be wholly consistent with stimulus-stimulus (S-S) views of conditioning that stress the importance of the US and not the unconditioned response (UR) in conditioning, its viability must await further research designed to directly assess its plausibility. For example, psychophysiological assessment of the fear reaction in M-NFB, Y-FB, and Y-NFB groups could be used to determine whether the presence of feedback, either in the form of an escape response or an exteroceptive FS, does in fact reduce the intensity and/or duration of the unconditioned response to the US. Evidence that such reduction in the UR does indeed occur would be consistent with this explanation, although it would not in itself constitute definitive support for this hypothesis. A second possible explanation for how feedback reduces the level of fear conditioned to the CS derives from the Rescorla^Wagner model (1972). Let us first consider Experiment 3, where there are three elements of the sit1 It should be noted that this lack of a difference between the M-FB and M-NFB groups was not simply due to a floor effect. As can be seen in Figures 5 and 6, levels of freezing during Periods B and C were sufficiently elevated so that any possible group differences should have been detectable.

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uation that must be accounted for: the CS, the background cues, and the FS or escape response (for Groups Y-FB and M-NFB, respectively). If one considers that the background cues compete both with the FS or escape response for inhibitory strength and with the CS for excitatory strength, then a possible account of our results in Experiment 3 emerges. For Groups M-NFB and Y-FB the escape response and exteroceptive FS, respectively, should acquire strong inhibitory power because they are excellent predictors of fairly long shock-free intervals. This would reduce the amount of inhibitory power that could accrue to the background cues in the intertrial intervals for those groups by comparison with the amount of inhibitory power that could accrue to the background during the intertrial interval (ITI) for Group Y-NFB. When one then considers in turn that the amount of conditioning that can accrue to the CS on a given trial is greater the lower the excitatory strength of the competing background cues present on that conditioning trial, then the higher level of fear of the CS in the Y-NFB groups makes sense. Because the background cues are more inhibitory (or at least less excitatory) for the Y-NFB groups, the asymptote of conditioning to the CS will be higher for this group. For the other two groups, M-NFB and Y-FB, the background cues are less inhibitory (or more excitatory), and so compete more effectively with the CS for excitatory power, resulting in a lower asymptote of conditioning to the CS. A parallel explanation of the results of Experiment 4 can also be developed along the same lines where the primary difference is that either the proprioceptive feedback from the escape response and/or the exteroceptive feedback signal would be acquiring inhibitory power. The viability of this explanation for the results of Experiments 3 and 4 in terms of the Rescorla-Wagner model could be assessed by testing the three groups for their fear of the background cues using Corriveau and Smith's fear assessment techniques as in Experiments 1 and 2. If this explanation is correct, one would predict that fear of the background would be greater in Groups M-NFB, M-FB, and Y-FB than in Group Y-NFB (an outcome opposite to that obtained in Experiments 1 and 2, where no CS was involved). And indeed, there are two recent experiments in the lit-

erature that are consistent with this prediction. Fanselow (1980) found that rats developed an aversion for a context in which they received a CS that was negatively correlated with shock as compared to contexts in which they received either a signal that was uncorrelated with shock or a signal that was positively correlated with shock. In other words, when a CS is present and acquires strong inhibitory power, there is evidence that the background or contextual cues become more excitatory than when there is no CS- (or CS+). In addition, Patterson and Overmier (1981) showed that a contextual cue that was present during inhibitory fear conditioning became excitatory as demonstrated by its effect on increasing the rate\of ongoing Sidman avoidance responding in a different context. By contrast, a contextual cue that was present during excitatory fear conditioning did not become excitatory when tested in the Sidman avoidance context. In sum, although the results of these two experiments do not provide definitive support for the explanation of our results based on the Rescorla-Wagner model because they used different parameters and were aimed at examining different issues, they are consistent with this explanation and provide support for some of its basic assumptions. Although the Rescorla-Wagner model appears to provide a plausible explanation for why the Y-NFB groups showed higher levels of fear of the CS than did the M-NFB, M-FB, and Y-FB groups in Experiments 3 and 4, it does not provide as ready an explanation for the results of Experiments 1 and 2, which used unsignaled shocks and tested for fear of the context directly. Because there was no explicit CS to compete directly with the background contextual cues for excitatory power, it does not seem as obvious how the presence of feedback (either in the form of an escape response or a FS) should result in less fear being conditioned to the context. In fact, one might even predict the opposite result if one considers what happens to the strength of the contextual cues for the different groups of Experiments 1 and 2 during the ITI. If it is presumed that the contextual cues gain excitatory strength during the shock periods and lose it during the ITIs, then one might expect the amount of loss of excitatory power during the ITI to be a function of how much competition there is for inhibitory power. Because the M-NFB

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and Y-FB groups have inhibitory power accruing to the feedback (escape response or FS) . on every trial, the feedback should compete with the contextual cues for loss of excitatory power during the ITI. If loss of excitatory power during the ITI is less for these groups than for group Y-NFB, then one might expect that cumulative gains in excitatory power to the context during the shock trials to be greater for these groups than for the Y-NFB group, instead of less as was actually found. A third possible account of these results was also first proposed by Starr and Mineka (1977). For Groups M-NFB, M-FB, and Y-FB as the feedback acquires fear inhibitory properties, a process of counterconditioning may occur that reduces fear of the CS. Because there is no powerful inhibitor of fear for Group Y-NFB, the possibility of such counterconditioning does not exist for this group, and so fear of the CS remains higher. Although we know of no evidence supporting the possibility of such counterconditioning in sequential compound conditioning situations, it does seem like a viable alternative. However, because feedback stimuli take longer to acquire fear inhibitory properties than do CSs to acquire fear excitatory properties (cf. Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), this possibility seems to require that if fear had been assessed in our groups at an earlier stage, such group differences would not have emerged and the M-NFB arid Y-FB groups would have been more fearful of the CS earlier in conditioning than they were after 50 trials. A fourth possible account of our results based on Wagner's (1976, 1978) short-term memory model was mentioned briefly in the discussion of Experiment 3. According to this model it is possible that the feedback stimuli and/or the escape response disrupt rehearsal of the CS-US association for the M-NFB, M-FB, and Y-FB groups. The expected result of such disruption in rehearsal would be the attainment of a lower asymptote of conditioning for these groups than for the Y-NFB groups. This account would not require the feedback stimulus or the escape response to become inhibitory. Therefore, further experiments designed to assess whether they do become inhibitory would be a first step in testing between these alternative hypotheses. Although these first four possible accounts of our results all assume that less fear was

present in the M-NFB, M-FB, and Y-FB groups at the end of the conditioning phase, a fifth possible account stems from the possibility that our results primarily demonstrate a different rate of extinction of fear in the three groups in the fear testing phase. This account stems from the observation that there are more changes from the fear conditioning to the fear testing phase for the M-NFB, MFB, and Y-FB groups than for the Y-NFB groups. For the M-NFB and M-FB groups the presence of the ledge and the possibility of making an escape response are not present at all in Experiment 3 and 4, and access to the ledge from a position that would allow the escape response to be made was not possible in Experiments 1 and 2 until an approach response to the grids had already been made. Similarly, for the Y-FB groups of all four experiments, the absence of the feedback stimulus in the fear testing phase may have allowed for an easy discrimination between the two phases to have been formed. In fact, one way of conceptualizing the elements of the conditioning paradigm for the Y-FB groups is to say that they had a compound US consisting of shock plus an FS; both elements of the US compound were gone in the fear testing phase. By contrast, the Y-NFB groups had relatively less change from the fear conditioning to the fear testing phases because they did not lose an FS or access to an escape response. Thus according to this account, there is greater disconfirmation of previously learned expectancies during the fear testing phase for the MNFB, M-FB, and Y-FB groups than for the YNFB groups. In other words, having control in the form of an escape response, and/or added predictability by virtue of having an FS, may not result in less conditioning of fear per se, but rather may make the organism more sensitive to changes in environmental contingencies when the situation changes. As a result, fears once acquired may be given up more quickly when the original contingencies have changed. It should be noted that according to this last account the groups should not differ at the outset of the fear testing phase, but rather differences should emerge over the course of testing. Unfortunately, an assessment of this possibility for Experiments 1 and 2 is not feasible because fear testing occurred continuously over a 1-hr period and no discrete CS

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was employed. For Experiments 3 and 4, this account would predict that the groups would not differ on the first few trials of extinction. In order to check this possibility, Duncan's post hoc comparisons were used to contrast the levels of the groups during the CS for the first two extinction trials of both Experiments 3 and 4. In Experiment 3 the M-NFB and YFB groups showed significantly lower levels of freezing than the Y-NFB group by Periods B and C of Trial 1 and during Period B of Trial 2. In Experiment 4 this same pattern of group differences existed for Period B of both Trials 1 and 2. For Period C of Experiment 4 only the Y-FB group showed significantly lower freezing than the Y-NFB group on Trial 1; both the Y-FB and M-FB groups displayed lower freezing levels than did the Y-NFB group during Period C of Trial 2. In sum, the results of Experiments 3 and 4 suggest that the differential rate of fear extinction account is not viable. As is evident from the previous discussion, it is not possible at present to be certain which of the four mechanisms considered is correct in accounting for our results. Nevertheless, we believe our results are important in highlighting the importance of two issues. First, they raise some question about the validity of the conclusions of the hundreds of experiments conducted over the past. 15 years or so that have compared the effects of controllable versus uncontrollable shock on a variety of dependent variables (see Maier & Jackson, 1979; Maier & Seligman, 1976, for recent reviews). In general, such experiments have assumed that the use of a yoked control design such as that employed with our M-NFB and Y-NFB groups is sufficient to draw conclusions about the effects of control and lack of control. However, our results suggest that at least some of the effects that have been attributed to "control" might in fact have been attributed to the added predictability or feedback that stems from having control. In other words, if such experiments had included groups comparable to our Y-FB groups, they might have found that some of their effects attributed to control per se were mistakenly interpreted. In keeping with this suggestion, several years ago Altenor, Volpicelli, and Ehrman (in press) reported several failures to replicate the basic learned helplessness or proactive interference effect in

rats that had been treated similarly to our YFB groups, that is, that had received inescapable shocks followed by feedback stimuli in the pretreatment phase. ThuSi although it seems unlikely that all the effects that have been attributed to control per se really would reduce to the effects of added feedback, our results and those of Altenor et al. do suggest that controls for this possibility should be included in more experiments in this area in the future. The second issue highlighted by our results concerns the importance of examining the dynamics of fear conditioning in more complex contexts than those in which it has traditionally been examined. Most conclusions about the dynamics of Pavlovian conditioning have been derived from traditional Pavlovian paradigms where the subject has no control over the US (and no feedback about US offset). However, many of the everyday events where Pavlovian conditioning occurs do involve situations where subjects have some control over the US and/or some feedback that the US has terminated and will not happen again for a while. As seen in the previous experiments, such factors may play an important role in how much fear is conditioned to neutral events paired with the US and/or how quickly such fear, once acquired, will extinguish once the situation has changed slightly. References
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