Conditioned fear continues in the lack of presentation of the unconditioned stimulus e.g. extinction is not automatic and instantaneous. Conditioned suppression is conditioning that is designed to reduce the incidence of continuing behavior that precedes punishment. The behavior is in response to a stimulus. The stimulus has been paired with punishment. The reduction in the occurrence of the punished behavior is because the stimulus preceded by a punishment signals a momentary halt in responding. This hiatus in responding or freezing, prevents any voluntary behavior. The conditioning of fear brought about by punishment interferes with activity.Response suppression due to fear conditioning works the same way as the reduction in behavior that is punished except that there is no conditioned stimulus to signal the presentation of punishment. Environmental cues take the place of conditioned stimuli.Conditioned emotional response theory explains the phenomena of more severe punishment producing more suppression through the intermediary agency of more vigorous conditioned emotional responses. This theory also accounts for response contingent aversion being more effective than response independent aversion id est punishment becomes associated with the behavior suppressed. Furthermore, does punishment irrespective of response not allow for association? If punishment is temporally contiguous to the conditioned response the stimulus associated with the punishment is probably going to be associated with the response as well. For many people, the aversive stimuli of the ringing of an alarm bell does result in a startle response of freezing and a temporary incapacity for action, but for highly trained emergency services personnel the same stimulus does not result in freezing but rather an energizing call to action. One might say that the difference in response is a result of a difference in conditioning, but the stimulus is the same. The unpleasantness of the alarm bell clanging is not lessened for the firefighter, but its salience compared to the salience is due to differences in conditioning but it is because of the different subjects perceiving the stimulus differently.The punishment of behavior has an aversive effect on any stimuli that are concomitant to that behavior or are simultaneous with that behavior. The punishment of behavior has an aversive effect on any stimuli that are concomitant or simultaneous with that behavior. Escape is learned by engaging in some other behavior that is incompatible with the punished behavior because of the incompatibility the other behavior suppresses the punished behavior. The avoidance theory declares that punishment is an outcome that elicits alternative incompatible behavior. It is also a declaration of avoidance theory that departure from the established pattern of behavior that are a result of punishment irrespective of whether the new frequency of the old behavior is less or more is a result of learning to move away from punishmentAny reduction of behavior is not a result of lessening of the old behavior rather it is viewed as increasing responses that move away from the punishment or doing something else which takes the place of the punished behavior. The explanation of punishment in terms of avoidance methods exposes punishments to all the problems in the theory of avoidance. Such as, critical elements, that are not stated in a manner that presents them to testing by experimentation. Conditioned negative associations to stimuli are not controlled by the experimenter. Thus they can become events concomitant to a punished response or worse, a confounding variable. Avoidance theory explanations suffer from a lack of clarity.Clearly, avoidance behavior occurs, experimental animals learn to remove themselves from floor plates that produce an electric shock. They also learn to anticipate the shock from environmental cues and associated stimuli that presage electric shock, that they are not in contact with the floor plate by the time the shock is presented.