One-trial context fear conditioning with immediate shock. The roles of transport and contextual cues

In three experiments, using a total of 120 albino rats, we assessed whether transportation cues might evoke some of the freezing (i.e., defensive immo bility) that we see in a context on a day following a footshock given immed iately after placement in that context. The results suggested that immediat e shock could directly condition strong fear to both simulated and actual t ransport cues. Although conditioning to transport cues explains some of the freezing that is seen on the test day, it does not explain all of it. We a lso found evidence that some of the freezing is due to conditioning to perm anent features of the context in which the immediate shock is given. The re sults support a role for transport cues in theories of context conditioning and argue against shock-processing accounts of the conditioning deficit th at results from immediate shock.