Extinguished second-order conditioned fear responses are renewed but not reinstated

A series of experiments used rats to examine renewal and reinstatement of extinguished second-order conditioned fear (freezing) responses. The initial experiment demonstrated that freezing responses to a stimulus (S2) were contingent on its pairings with a second stimulus (S1) and on the prior pairings of S1 and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). Subsequent experiments showed that these freezing responses extinguished across S2 alone presentations, but were renewed when: S2-S1 pairings and S2 alone presentations occurred in the same context and testing of S2 occurred elsewhere; S2-S1 pairings and testing were in the same context and S2 alone presentations were elsewhere; and when S2-S1 pairings, S2 alone presentations and testing occurred in different contexts. Freezing responses to an extinguished S1 were reinstated by US alone presentations. However, these responses were not reinstated to an extinguished S2 by US or S1 alone presentations, and, conversely, freezing to a nonextinguished S2 was unaffected by extinction of S1. The results were interpreted to mean that S2-S1 pairings produced an association between S2 and the fear responses elicited by S1 and that extinction of this association is controlled by context. The failure to reinstate fear responses to S2 is discussed in terms of theories developed to explain reinstatement of S1.