Reply to Beckers, McIntosh and Chambers on the verification of ‘preventing the return of fear using retrieval-extinction in humans’

Abstract

A recent article in the journal Cortex (Chalkia et al. 2020) has claimed a failure to verify the results reported in our 2010 study describing the phenomenon of reconsolidation updating using the retrieval-extinction protocol (Schiller et al., 2010). Since the journal did not grant us the right of reply, we publish our response here. We show, among other things, that a reanalysis of the raw data reproduces the results and contend that the conclusions are valid.

The lack of evidence in Schiller et al. (2010) verified: Reply to Schiller, LeDoux, and Phelps (2020)

“…What we will do in our rebuttal is respond to the criticisms raised by Schiller et al (2020) regarding the contents of our VR, which these authors tried to dismiss as an opinion piece rather than the factual report that it is. Below, we repeat (in bold) the claims that Schiller et al (2020) argue we make in our VR, followed (in italic bold) with their criticism of each claim.…”

“…What we will do in our rebuttal is respond to the criticisms raised by Schiller et al (2020) regarding the contents of our VR, which these authors tried to dismiss as an opinion piece rather than the factual report that it is. Below, we repeat (in bold) the claims that Schiller et al (2020) argue we make in our VR, followed (in italic bold) with their criticism of each claim. We show that their arguments are either misguided or incorrect, and, most importantly, we point out, once again, that their original results were entirely dependent on selective participant exclusions (see points 2, 3, and 4 below).…”

“…The analyses included in the VR clearly document this critical discovery and we will not reiterate them here. We will also not respond to the lengthy defense in Schiller et al (2020) of the phenomenon of reconsolidation or the veracity of the retrieval-extinction effect, given that we never generalized the observations in our VR regarding the findings of Schiller et al (2010) to the wider literature. Lastly, we will not address the comments critiquing the editorial process or questioning the purpose of VRs, as we feel in no position to do so.…”

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Schiller, LeDoux, and Phelps recently posted a preprint (Schiller et al, 2020) in which they comment on a Verification Report we published (Chalkia et al, 2020a; VR) regarding their initial demonstration of the retrieval-extinction effect in humans (Schiller et al, 2010). The contents of the preprint are also partly concerned with a Registered Report we published regarding a direct replication of the same study (Chalkia et al, 2020b; RR).

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“…Lastly, we will not address the comments critiquing the editorial process or questioning the purpose of VRs, as we feel in no position to do so. If Schiller et al (2020) have their own suggestions about how a VR should be conducted and handled, they can bring them to the attention of the appropriate people (the aims and policies of VRs can be found online here: https://www.elsevier.com/__data/promis_misc/VR_GuideForAuthors.pdf).…”