Fear Extinction

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Even though researchers in the field of psychology have made great advances, the study of the mind is still a relatively new science since it only became official in 1879 when Wilhem Wundt performed the first psychology lab (Scantling, 2018). Due to the fact that psychology is still young there are still a great deal of things to learn and the journal article Extinction of Contextual Fear with Timed Exposure to Enriched Envrionment: A Differential Effect, by Preethi Hegde, Shane O’Mara, and Thenkanidiyoor Rao Lami (2017), exemplifies the many things there are still left to learn. In this experiment the authors point out that there are many studies that conclude that the differences in an environment have an impact on the processing of fear extinction; however, little is known about the effects of the time at which the enriched environment is incorporated into fear …show more content…

The importance of this research is that it can help improve fear extinction training with humans and animals. Previous experiments have indicated that enriched environments have changed the way people and animals act in different situations and increases cognitive functions (NIthianantharajah & Hannan, 2006). Additionally, it has been found prior to this study that enriched environments tend to improve stimulus discrimination (Duffy, Craddock, Abel, & Nguyen, 2001). To add to this previous research Hegde, O’Mara, and Lami (2017) designed an experiment in hopes of better explaining what happens in the brain when the enriched environment is incorporated before and after fear extinction. In this study, to determine the effect of the timing of the enriched environment the researchers set up three groups of male Wistar rats. The independent variable being the different environments and the dependent variable being the measured responses during fear

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