What's wrong with fear conditioning?

Beckers, Tom; Krypotos, Angelos‐Miltiadis; Boddez, Yannick; Effting, Marieke; Kindt, Merel

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.12.015

Cited by 242 publications

(205 citation statements)

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“…Avoidance behavior is an instantiation of fear (Beckers et al, 2013) and plays a key role in the maintenance of anxiety (Barlow, 2002;Mineka, 1979). Avoidance may become debilitating and lead to impaired social functioning and, because of this, it is often the sole target of therapeutic change.…”

Section: Symbolic Avoidance Generalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fear learning may, however, go awry or become excessive and lead to the development of psychopathology. In experimental psychopathology, the behavioral mechanisms of fear learning are investigated using the fear-conditioning paradigm-perhaps the most well-established translational model of the acquisition of clinically relevant fear and anxiety (Beckers, Krypotos, Boddez, Effting, & Kindt, 2013;Boddez, Baeyens, Hermans, & Beckers, 2014;Bouton, 2002;Craske, Hermans, & Vansteenwegen, 2006;Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006). Fear-conditioning involves an initially neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus or CS), such as a light or a tone, being repeatedly paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The underlying neurobehavioral mechanisms supporting this transition from adaptive fear learning to clinical fear, avoidance, and anxiety are now well understood thanks to the fear-conditioning paradigm (Beckers et al, 2013;Lissek et al, 2005;Vervliet & Raes, 2013). But fear learning is rarely (if ever) limited to those specific instances or events in which conditioning occurred.…”

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Fear Generalization in Humans: Systematic Review and Implications for Anxiety Disorder Research

et al. 2015

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Fear generalization, in which conditioned fear responses generalize or spread to related stimuli, is a defining feature of anxiety disorders. The behavioral consequences of maladaptive fear generalization are that aversive experiences with one stimulus or event may lead one to regard other cues or situations as potential threats that should be avoided, despite variations in physical form. Theoretical and empirical interest in the generalization of conditioned learning dates to the earliest research on classical conditioning in nonhumans. Recently, there has been renewed focus on fear generalization in humans due in part to its explanatory power in characterizing disorders of fear and anxiety. Here, we review existing behavioral and neuroimaging empirical research on the perceptual and non-perceptual (conceptual and symbolic) generalization of fear and avoidance in healthy humans and patients with anxiety disorders. The clinical implications of this research for understanding the etiology and treatment of anxiety is considered and directions for future research described.

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Section: Symbolic Avoidance Generalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fear Generalization in Humans: Systematic Review and Implications for Anxiety Disorder Research

et al. 2015

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“…However, it can also be maladaptive. For example, in many anxiety disorders, seemingly harmless cues may become associated to strong and disruptive emotional responses, leading to distress and daily problems for those suffering them (Beckers, Krypotos, Boddez, Effting, & Kindt, 2013;Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006).Fortunately, this type of learning is flexible in the sense that, once it has been acquired, it may be modified or altered. One of the ways in which this modification can take place is through extinction, the repeated presentation of a given cue in the absence of the consequences with which it had been previously associated (Pavlov, 1927).…”

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Slower reacquisition after partial extinction in human contingency learning.

Morís¹,

Barberia

Vadillo³

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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Extinction is a very relevant learning phenomenon from a theoretical and applied point of view. One of its most relevant features is that relapse phenomena often take place once the extinction training has been completed. Accordingly, as extinction-based therapies constitute the most widespread empirically validated treatment of anxiety disorders, one of their most important limitation is this potential relapse. We provide the first demonstration of relapse reduction in human contingency learning using mild aversive stimuli. This effect was found after partial extinction (i.e., reinforced trials were occasionally experienced during extinction, Experiment 1) and progressive extinction treatments (Experiment 3), and it was not only due to differences in uncertainty levels between the partial and a standard extinction group (Experiment 2). The theoretical explanation of these results, the potential uses of this strategy in applied situations, and its current limitations are discussed.Keywords: Extinction, contingency learning, relapse, aversive learning Slower reacquisition after partial extinction 2 Learning relationships between different events relevant to organisms is ubiquitous, and takes place almost constantly (Clark, 2013;Friston, 2003). Most of the time, this acquired knowledge is helpful, as it is the basis of useful predictions about future events or inferences about their relationships. However, it can also be maladaptive. For example, in many anxiety disorders, seemingly harmless cues may become associated to strong and disruptive emotional responses, leading to distress and daily problems for those suffering them (Beckers, Krypotos, Boddez, Effting, & Kindt, 2013;Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006).Fortunately, this type of learning is flexible in the sense that, once it has been acquired, it may be modified or altered. One of the ways in which this modification can take place is through extinction, the repeated presentation of a given cue in the absence of the consequences with which it had been previously associated (Pavlov, 1927). A progressive reduction in the acquired response to this cue is observed after experiencing a series of presentations of the cue alone. This flexibility allows the organism not only to adapt to changes in the cue-outcome relationships as they occur in the environment but also to ease those maladaptive forms of learning that lead to disruptive emotional responses. For example, in cognitive and behavioral therapies of anxiety disorders, exposure therapy -a repeated, systematic, and controlled exposure to the feared cue, in the absence of any traumatic event-seems to be a key component to success (Bouton, 2002, Longmore & Worrell, 2007Norton & Price, 2007). Unfortunately, extinction is not such a robust effect as acquisition itself, and several factors can lead to a recovery of the original fear response, or relapse. Thus, the current challenge is not so much to achieve the fear reduction but to prevent its relapse (Vervliet, Craske, & Hermans, 2013). The return of fear was firs...

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“…Threat conditioning 1 is one of the dominant paradigms in the experimental study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Beckers, Krypotos, Boddez, Effting, & Kindt, 2013; for relevant examples see Orr et al, 2000; Sijbrandij, Engelhard, Lommen, Leer, & Baas, 2013). This procedure typically involves the pairing of an initially neutral stimulus (e.g.…”

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Bayesian hypothesis testing for human threat conditioning research: an introduction and the condir R package

Krypotos

Klugkist

Engelhard

2017

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Threat conditioning procedures have allowed the experimental investigation of the pathogenesis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The ﬁndings of these procedures have also provided stable foundations for the development of relevant intervention programs (e.g. exposure therapy). Statistical inference of threat conditioning procedures is commonly based on p-values and Null Hypothesis Signiﬁcance Testing (NHST). Nowadays, however, there is a growing concern about this statistical approach, as many scientists point to the various limitations of p-values and NHST. As an alternative, the use of Bayes factors and Bayesian hypothesis testing has been suggested. In this article, we apply this statistical approach to threat conditioning data. In order to enable the easy computation of Bayes factors for threat conditioning data we present a new R package named condir, which can be used either via the R console or via a Shiny application. This article provides both a non-technical introduction to Bayesian analysis for researchers using the threat conditioning paradigm, and the necessary tools for computing Bayes factors easily.

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What's wrong with fear conditioning?

Cited by 242 publications

References 64 publications

Fear Generalization in Humans: Systematic Review and Implications for Anxiety Disorder Research

Fear Generalization in Humans: Systematic Review and Implications for Anxiety Disorder Research

Slower reacquisition after partial extinction in human contingency learning.

Bayesian hypothesis testing for human threat conditioning research: an introduction and the condir R package

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