FAILURE TO OBSERVE LEARNED HELPLESSNESS IN RATS EXPOSED TO INESCAPABLE FOOTSHOCK

Two experiments were performed to determine whether exposure to inescapable footshock would impair acquisition of difficult (FR 3 or higher) instrumental escape responses by rats. In the first experiment, rats received 250 trials of inescapable or escapable shock (mean duration: 7.7 sec/trial). In the second experiment, animals were exposed to durations of 5, 10, or 20 sec/trial of inescapable footshock. No evidence of an interference effect (helplessness) was observed, despite the use of conditions that should have detected this effect. © 1979, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.