The renewal effect in fear conditioning with aversive facial expression and negative sentences as unconditioned stimuli

Generalized Associative Model: A model for individual and averaged learning curves in Pavlovian conditioning

“…The effects of group on extinction were observed only in data 2 (data 1: BFs < 0.40; data2: BFs < 2.34), and a simple effect analysis indicated that a contextual change promotes the rate of extinction. In summary, acquisition and extinction were achieved in both groups, and a contextual change following acquisition affected extinction only in Data 2 (see also Nihei et al, 2021a;2021b).…”

“…n = 63;Nihei et al, 2021a) and 2 (n = 64;Nihei et al, 2021b) were obtained from fear conditioning experiments with undergraduates and graduates using neutral faces designated as CSs (CS+ and CS-) and movie stimuli consisting of disgusted faces with insults designated as US. During the acquisition phase (nine trials), CS+ was always paired with US, while CS-was never paired with US.…”

ABA, ABC, and AAB renewal effects and individual differences of learning on fear conditioning using social stimuli

“…Sixty-four graduate and undergraduate psychology students (46 female) with a mean age of 20.38 years (SD = 2.26, range: 18-27) participated in this experiment. The sample size was determined by a prior power analysis (f = 0.25, α= 0.95, β= 0.80, correlation among repeated measures = 0.38) based on our previous study (Nihei et al, 2021) using G*Power 3.1 (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009). Although the result indicated to be necessary for 60 participants to detect the effect, the number of participants was determined to be 64 to equalize the type of stimuli used in each group by counterbalance.…”

“…All stimuli were the same as those used by Nihei et al (2021). The neutral faces of two actors (male and female) served as CS + or CS-and three movies of a negative comment ("Go away!"…”

“…Findings of fear conditioning using social stimuli as both CS and US are accumulated to investigate various clinical purposes, such as differences in the degree of CR between healthy participants and individuals with SAD (e.g., Tinoco-González et al, 2015). As a finding of recovery of CR after extinction, Nihei et al (2021) showed that the ABA renewal effect occurs in this preparation. Although this finding suggests a relationship between the renewal and relapse of social anxiety, a relapse following exposure sessions might not be caused by ABA renewal only.…”