Generalization of Conditioned Contextual Anxiety and the Modulatory Effects of Anxiety Sensitivity

Abstract

Anxiety patients overgeneralize fear responses, possibly because they cannot distinguish between cues never been associated with a threat (i.e., safe) and threat-associated cues. However, as contexts and not cues are discussed as the relevant triggers for prolonged anxiety responses characterizing many anxiety disorders, we speculated that it is rather overgeneralization of contextual anxiety, which constitutes a risk factor for anxiety disorders. To this end, we investigated generalization of conditioned contextual anxiety and explored modulatory effects of anxiety sensitivity, a risk factor for anxiety disorders. Fifty-five participants underwent context conditioning in a virtual reality paradigm. On Day 1 (acquisition), participants received unpredictable mildly painful electric stimuli (unconditioned stimulus, US) in one virtual office (anxiety context, CTX+), but never in a second office (safety context, CTX−). Successful acquisition of conditioned anxiety was indicated by aversive ratings and defensive physiological responses (i.e., SCR) to CTX+ vs CTX−. On Day 2 (generalization), participants re-visited both the anxiety and the safety contexts plus three generalization contexts (G-CTX), which were gradually dissimilar to CTX+ (from 75 to 25%). Generalization of conditioned anxiety was evident for ratings, but less clear for physiological responses. The observed dissociation between generalization of verbal and physiological responses suggests that these responses depend on two distinct context representations, likely elemental and contextual representations. Importantly, anxiety sensitivity was positively correlated with the generalization of reported contextual anxiety. Thus, this study demonstrates generalization gradients for conditioned contextual anxiety and that anxiety sensitivity facilitates such generalization processes suggesting the importance of generalization of contextual anxiety for the development of anxiety disorders.

Fear conditioning and stimulus generalization in association with age in children and adolescents

“…We then calculated correlations with age for those effects involving the factor stimulus type following an approach described by Andreatta et al [ 38 ]. Thus, for the stimulus type × phase × age three-way interaction concerning valence ratings ( F (2,246) = 9.06, p < .001, η 2 = .07, Table 1 ), we calculated differential scores between CS+ and CS− for Acquisition 1 and Acquisition 2, respectively, and then subtracted the differential score of Acquisition 1 from the differential score of Acquisition 2 (ACQ 2 [CS+ minus CS−] − ACQ 1[CS+ minus CS−]).…”

“…To disentangle the correlational effects, we first correlated age with the difference scores between CS+ and CS− separately after Acquisition 1 and Acquisition 2, and second, we correlated the difference scores between Acquisition 1 and Acquisition 2 separately for CS+ and CS− following the procedure of Andreatta et al [ 38 ]. Thus, by disentangling the effects, we first found a positive correlation between age and the differential score after Acquisition 1 ( r (131) = 0.38, p < .001), but not after Acquisition 2 ( r (131) = 0.001, p = .987), meaning that the older the participants were, the better they differentiated between the stimuli after Acquisition 1 (Fig.…”

“…We then calculated correlations with age for those effects involving the factor stimulus type following an approach described by Andreatta et al [38]. Thus, for the stimulus type × phase × age three-way interaction concerning valence Fig.…”

Associative learning shapes visual discrimination in a web-based classical conditioning task

“…Significant effects were followed up with t tests. For rating analyses, post-hoc tests for the factor orientation were referenced against the CS− as is frequently done in the fear conditioning literature 35 , 36 . A significance level of 0.05 was used for all analyses and Greenhouse–Geisser correction was applied where appropriate 37 .…”

Associative learning shapes visual discrimination – a web-based study

“…Significant effects were followed up with t-tests. For rating analyses, post-hoc tests for the factor orientation were referenced against the CS-as is frequently done in the fear conditioning literature (Andreatta et al, 2020;Lissek et al, 2010). A significance level of 0.05 was used for all analyses and Greenhouse-Geisser correction was applied where appropriate (Greenhouse & Geisser, 1959).…”