Abstract

VILA CARRANZA, Javier; DOMINGUEZ MARTINEZ, Josué  and  ROJAS ITURRIA, Fátima. Comparison of Three Extinction Procedures on Discriminated Avoidance Learning in Humans. Acta de investigación psicol [online]. 2020, vol.10, n.2, pp.80-90.  Epub Mar 05, 2021. ISSN 2007-4719.  https://doi.org/10.22201/fpsi.20074719e.2020.2.348.

In discriminated avoidance, a response emitted during the signal prevents the appearance of an aversive stimulus. The extinction of avoidance responses has been studied as the termination of the instrumental relationship between the response and aversive stimulus. Its understanding has been essential to understand the maintenance of the avoidance response in humans. Three procedures of avoidance response extinction in humans were compared. Twenty-seven participants learned a discriminated avoidance task divided into two phases: Pavlovian, with pairings of two signals (Conditioned Stimulus (EC) 1, EC2) with a sound (90 dB, 60 Hz), and Instrumental, in which R1 response to the EC1 or R2 response to EC2 prevented sound. After these phases, participants were assigned to three groups, each group experienced different extinction procedures; (Unconditioned Stimulus, EI) where R1 did not end with the signal, but with the sound, (EC) where R1 ended with the signal, but not with the sound, and (EC / EI) where R1 did not end with any of the stimuli (signal, sound). In all groups R2 continued avoiding sound. Results show that R1 responses decreased (were extinguished) in the EC and EC / EI groups, but didn’t in the EI group. These results emphasize the importance of signal termination in maintaining discriminated avoidance learning.

Keywords : Discriminated Avoidance; Extinction; Two-factor Theory; Instrumental Learning; Humans.