期刊名称:International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy
印刷版ISSN:1577-7057
出版年度:2016
卷号:16
期号:3
页码:249-263
语种:English
出版社:Universidad de Almería
其他摘要:Research on fear conditioning is key to understanding the genesis and maintenance of anxiety disorders. A still scarce but growing evidence shows that fear-conditioned arousal reactions may transfer amongst physically dissimilar but symbolically related (e.g. equivalent) stimuli. The limited investigation published to date has relied on skin conductance responses as its main measure. Thus far, no published studies have analyzed this phenomenon using more emotionally sensitive psychophysiological measures, like fear-potentiated startle. Twenty-seven participants underwent a matching-to-sample procedure for the formation of two four-member equivalence classes (A1-B1-C1-D1 and A2-B2-C2-D2). Then, one element from each class was used in a differential aversive conditioning procedure (CS+: B1; CS-: B2) with electric shock as the UCS. Eye-blink startle (measured as EMG activity of the orbicularis oculi muscle after a burst of white noise), skin conductance responses, and shock-risk self-report ratings were collected. Results show no evidence of transfer of functions with any of the psychophysiological measures. A weak, inconclusive effect was observed for self-reported ratings.
其他关键词:Transfer of functions; fear conditioning; generalization; equivalence relations; fear-potentiated startle.