Causal beliefs and conditioned responses: retrospective revaluation induced by experience and by instruction

The author tested causal beliefs and conditioned responses in a task involving retrospective revaluation of the causal status of a target cue with respect to electric shock. Successful revaluation was observed on both self-report shock expectancy and skin conductance, whether the training trials were directly experienced, described, or partly experienced and partly described. The results contradict models that link anticipatory conditioned responses to a separate or earlier process from that underlying explicit causal knowledge. They suggest instead that a single learning process gives rise to propositional knowledge that (a) drives anticipatory responding, (b) forms the basis for self-reported causal beliefs, and (c) can be combined with other knowledge, provided either by experience or symbolically, to generate inferences such as retrospective revaluation.     

Anticipation of interoceptive threat in highly anxiety sensitive persons

Anticipatory anxiety plays a major role in the etiology of panic disorder. Although anticipatory anxiety elicited by expectation of interoceptive cues is specifically relevant for panic patients, it has rarely been studied. Using a population analogue in high fear of such interoceptive arousal sensations (highly anxiety sensitive persons) we evaluated a new experimental paradigm to assess anticipatory anxiety during anticipation of interoceptive (somatic sensations evoked by hyperventilation) and exteroceptive (electric shock) threat. Symptom reports, autonomic arousal, and defensive response mobilization (startle eyeblink response) were monitored during threat and matched safe conditions in 26 highly anxiety sensitive persons and 22 controls. The anticipation of exteroceptive threat led to a defensive and autonomic mobilization as indexed by a potentiation of the startle response and an increase in skin conductance level in both experimental groups. During interoceptive threat, however, only highly anxiety sensitive persons but not the controls exhibited a startle response potentiation as well as autonomic activation. The anticipation of a hyperventilation procedure thus seems a valid paradigm to investigate anticipatory anxiety elicited by interoceptive cues in the clinical context.     

Evidence for expectancy as a mediator of avoidance and anxiety in a laboratory model of human avoidance learning

A laboratory model was developed to study human avoidance learning. Participants could avoid an electric shock signalled by a 5-s conditioned stimulus (CS) by pressing one of a set of response buttons. Self-reported shock expectancy and skin conductance were recorded during a subsequent 10-s interval before shock. Shock expectancy declined when the correct avoidance response was learned and returned when the response was unavailable. Learning transferred to another shock CS. Parallel effects were observed on skin conductance once performance anxiety was controlled by requiring responding on all trials. Learning was faster when the Pavlovian contingencies were trained before introduction of the instrumental response. The results support a cognitive model of anxiety in which performance of an avoidance response reduces expectancy of an aversive outcome and thereby reduces anxiety.     

Evidence for expectancy as a mediator of avoidance and anxiety in a laboratory model of human avoidance learning

A laboratory model was developed to study human avoidance learning. Participants could avoid an electric shock signalled by a 5-s conditioned stimulus (CS) by pressing one of a set of response buttons. Self-reported shock expectancy and skin conductance were recorded during a subsequent 10-s interval before shock. Shock expectancy declined when the correct avoidance response was learned and returned when the response was unavailable. Learning transferred to another shock CS. Parallel effects were observed on skin conductance once performance anxiety was controlled by requiring responding on all trials. Learning was faster when the Pavlovian contingencies were trained before introduction of the instrumental response. The results support a cognitive model of anxiety in which performance of an avoidance response reduces expectancy of an aversive outcome and thereby reduces anxiety.     

HEART RATE RESPONSES DURING ANTICIPATION OF AN ELECTRIC SHOCK OF VARIABLE PROBABILITY

N iemelá , P. Heart rate responses during anticipation of an electric shock of variable probability. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 232 -242.—Lacey's model associating heart rate deceleration with attention and acceleration with mental activity was tested. Subject concentrated on a figure indicating probability of receiving an electric shock after 20 seconds. Deceleration was predicted when shock positively would or would not come. Acceleration followed by deceleration was predicted for subjects anticipating 0.50 probability of shock since the beginning of anticipation would demand assessment of the situation. The hypotheses were supported by the data excluding the last trials. Electrodermal reactivity was linearly related to shock probability.     

Is aversive learning a marker of risk for anxiety disorders in children?

Aversive conditioning and extinction were evaluated in children with anxiety disorders (n=23), at-risk for anxiety disorders (n=15), and controls (n=11). Participants underwent 16 trials of discriminative conditioning of two geometric figures, with (CS+) or without (CS-) an aversive tone (US), followed by 8 extinction trials (4 CS+, 4 CS-), and 8 extinction re-test trials averaging 2 weeks later. Skin conductance responses and verbal ratings of valence and arousal to the CS+/CS- stimuli were measured. Anxiety disordered children showed larger anticipatory and unconditional skin conductance responses across conditioning, and larger orienting and anticipatory skin conductance responses across extinction and extinction re-test, all to the CS+ and CS-, relative to controls. At-risk children showed larger unconditional responses during conditioning, larger orienting responses during the first block of extinction, and larger anticipatory responses during extinction re-test, all to the CS+ and CS-, relative to controls. Also, anxiety disordered children rated the CS+ as more unpleasant than the other groups. Elevated skin conductance responses to signals of threat (CS+) and signals of safety (CS-; CS+ during extinction) are discussed as features of manifestation of and risk for anxiety in children, compared to the specificity of valence judgments to the manifestation of anxiety.     

The worried mind: autonomic and prefrontal activation during worrying

To study the psychophysiological correlates of worrying, the authors recorded heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), skin conductance level, and alpha electroencephalographic asymmetry in healthy males during baseline, relaxation, worry induction, and anticipation of an impromptu speech task. Compared with baseline, relaxation, and anticipation, worrying was associated with greater heart rate and lower RSA. Worrying was further characterized by higher skin conductance levels compared with baseline but lower levels than during anticipation. Finally, worrying was associated with relatively greater left frontal activity compared with anticipation. Trait public speaking anxiety was positively correlated with left frontal activity during worrying. These results support the notion that worrying is a unique emotional state that is different from fearful anticipation.     

ELECTRODERMAL RESPONSES AS A FUNCTION OF QUANTIFIED THREAT

N iemelá , P. Electrodermal responses as a function of quantified threat. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 19–56.—Threat was quantified by means of a 20 sec anticipation condition where the subject knew the exact time for the expected shock in advance, as well as the exact probability of receiving a shock. The probabilities used where 0.00, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 1.00. The electrodermal responses (the amplitude of the skin resistance response, the amplitude of the skin potential response, and the number of electrodermal responses) during the anticipation period were found to vary systematically as functions of the probability of shock, and as functions of the time elapsed from the beginning of the experiment.     

Coping patterns in shock anticipation and in everyday stress

Abstract.— GSR patterns were studied in 30 subjects anticipating and receiving electric shocks with high but not definitive probability. Although the majority of subjects showed anticipatory responses, six subjects displayed low or no response during anticipation but very high responses to shocks. As these subjects also reported that during anticipation they tended to deny the possibility of receiving a shock, their response pattern was interpreted as indicating denial of threat, and consequently, little preparation for stress. Self reports about behavior in everyday stress revealed a similar kind of behavior.     

Reducing uncertainty by anticipation in traffic – The effect of situational characteristics and criticality on behavioral,subjective, and psychophysiological parameters

Uncertainty in traffic may have fatal consequences when operating a vehicle. Enabling drivers to anticipate the behavior of other traffic participants can help reduce uncertainty and thus increase traffic safety. A multi-method approach using behavioral, subjective, and psychophysiological measures was applied to investigate the relation of uncertainty and anticipation. Participants (N = 30) observed simulated, video-based urban traffic scenarios while skin conductance responses were recorded. They had to indicate, by pressing a button, (1) the moment they first thought another vehicle might merge into their lane (low certainty anticipation) and (2) the moment they were sure another vehicle would merge (high certainty anticipation). Situational characteristics served as anticipatory cues that helped predict the other vehicle’s action. On the one hand, in this study, target cues (which are clearly related to the target’s activity) served to indicate an imminent lane change. On the other hand, context cues represented visible precursors in the traffic environment, e.g. a traffic sign pointing to upcoming road work. In addition, causal cues were used to determine a reason for the other vehicle to change lanes (in this instance, a construction site blocking the lane). These situational characteristics, as well as the situational criticality, were manipulated to gain insights into factors influencing the process of anticipation. Results offered an effect of target cue moderated by criticality: especially in more critical situations, the anticipation rate and subjective certainty increased, and physiological activation was reduced with target cues. Overall, the anticipatory performance was found to be a predictor of subjective certainty (through its impact on skin conductance responses). The findings are discussed in the context of the methodological approach for applications in traffic.     

Attention and anticipation in response to varying levels of uncertain threat: An ERP study

Individual differences in responding to uncertainty have been proposed as a key mechanism of how anxiety disorders develop and are maintained. However, most empirical work has compared responding to uncertain versus certain threat dichotomously. This is a significant limitation because uncertainty in daily life occurs along a continuum of probability, ranging from very low to high chances of negative outcomes. The current study investigated (1) how varying levels of uncertainty impact attention and anticipatory emotion, and (2) how these effects are moderated by individual differences in risk factors for anxiety disorders, particularly intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and worry. Participants (n = 65) completed a card task in which the probability of shock varied across trials. Two event-related potential components were examined: the P2, an index of attention, and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN), an index of anticipation. The P2 tracked the level of uncertainty and was smaller for more uncertain outcomes. Participants higher in IU exhibited greater differences in the P2 across levels of uncertainty. The SPN did not track specific levels of uncertainty but was largest for uncertain threat compared with certain threat and safety. Greater worry was associated with blunting of the SPN in anticipation of all outcomes. Thus, attention appears to be sensitive to variations in uncertainty, whereas anticipation seems sensitive to uncertainty globally. The two processes appear to be distinctly related to anxiety risk factors. These results highlight the value of examining multiple aspects of anticipatory responding to varying levels of uncertainty for understanding risk for anxiety disorders.     

Safety behaviours preserve threat beliefs: Protection from extinction of human fear conditioning by an avoidance response

A laboratory autonomic conditioning procedure was used to establish fear conditioning in human participants by pairing neutral stimuli with electric shock. Participants were also trained to make a button-press response to avoid shock. A target fear stimulus was then extinguished by presenting it without shock. The experimental group was given the opportunity to make the avoidance response during extinction whereas the control group was not. When the fear stimulus was tested without the response available, the control group showed normal extinction of both shock expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, but the experimental group showed “protection from extinction”: they continued to give high expectancy ratings and strong skin conductance responses. We interpret this effect as analogous to the role of within-situation safety behaviours in preserving threat beliefs during exposure therapy for anxiety disorders. The results support a cognitive account of learning and anxiety. The procedure provides a potential laboratory model for further examination of the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying anxiety and its reduction.     

Brain activity associated with omission of an aversive event reveals the effects of fear learning and generalization

During fear learning, anticipation of an impending aversive stimulus increases defensive behaviors. Interestingly, omission of the aversive stimulus often produces another response around the time the event was expected. This omission response suggests that the subject detected a mismatch between what was predicted and what actually occurred, thereby providing an indirect measure of cognitive expectancy. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether omission-related brain activity reflects fear expectancy during learning and generalization of conditioned fear. During conditioning, a face expressing a moderate amount of fear (conditioned stimulus, CS+) signaled delivery of an aversive shock unconditioned stimulus (US), whereas the same face with a neutral expression was unreinforced. In a subsequent generalization test, subjects were presented with faces expressing more or less fear intensity than the CS+. Psychophysiological results revealed an increase in the skin conductance response (SCR) during learning when the US was omitted. Omission-related SCRs were also observed during the generalization test following the offset of high- but not low-intensity face expressions. Neuroimaging results revealed omission-related neural activity during learning in the anterior cingulate cortex, parietal cortex, insula, and striatum. These same regions also showed omission-related responses during the generalization test following highly expressive fearful faces. Finally, regression analysis on omission responses during the generalization test revealed correlations in offset-related SCRs and neural activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex. Thus, converging psychophysiological and neural activity upon omission of aversive stimulation provides a novel metric of US expectancy, even to generalized cues that had no prior history of reinforcement.     

Determinants of tonic and phasic reactions in transswitching

Forty-eight college students were assigned randomly to four groups in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of phasic conditional stimuli (samevs. different) and tonic conditional stimuli (samevs. different) to receive 2 days of classical conditioning with a transswitching procedure. Tonic stimuli were a 5-minute projected white triangle or circle; phasic stimuli were a 5-second red or green square superimposed over the tonic stimuli. There were six tonic stimulus segments each day, separated by 20-second periods of no stimulus, three containing six trials of the phasic stimulus paired with shock and three containing six trials of the phasic stimulus alone, in the counterbalanced order. Tonic responding at the onset of the tonic stimuli or during brief periods following its onset were recorded, along with phasic responses to the phasic stimuli. Responses included magnitude of skin conductance responses, frequency of unelicited skin conductance responses, and tonic heart rate. Both skin conductance measures of responding to the tonic stimuli differentiated significantly between positive and negative tonic segments during Day 2, but only in the group with two different tonic stimuli and one phasic stimulus (“standard” transswitching). This supported the hypothesis that tonic stimulus differentiation would be absent when two different phasic stimuli were present. The heart rate data did not support this hypothesis, showing tonic differentiation in both groups with two tonic stimuli. Phasic differentiation controlled by the different phasic stimuli was observed on Day 1; on Day 2, phasic differentiation was present only in the group with two tonic and one phasic stimuli and the group with one tonic and two phasic stimuli. The results were interpreted to mean that temporal contiguity between the tonic stimuli and shock or no shock is not sufficient to establish tonic response differentiation in transswitching.     

The effects of incorrect pain expectations on acquired fear and pain responses

Previous experimental research on the effects of incorrect intensity expectations of aversive events can be criticized because intensity expectations were not manipulated independently from changes in objective intensity. The present study aims at investigating the effects of incorrect intensity expectations on the immediate and later responses to a painful stimulus, and on the acquisition of anticipatory responses, with proper experimental control. Subjects (n = 62) received 20 painful stimuli of varying intensity. In the control group intensities were correctly signalled on all trials by an analogue signal. On 3 trials the signal was too large in the overprediction condition, and too small in the underestimation condition. Underpredicted painful experiences were related to subsequent higher pain responses on the physiological level, but not on the subjective level; and to increased anticipatory responses (increased pain expectations, uncertainty, subjective fear, skin conductance responses). Skin conductance level also indicated increased fear after underpredicted experiences. Overpredicted painful experiences were related to a faster decrease in subjective fear compared to the control group, but did not influence other variables. The findings support the notion that underpredictions contribute to the acquistion of fear and disrupt habituation processes. The asymmetrical processing of the two kinds of incorrectly predicted experiences is discussed.     

Effects of two procedures for varying information transmission on observing responses

Two experiments were conducted with pigeons to examine the effects of procedures that varied information transmission on observing responses. The basic procedure for Experiment I was one in which a trial terminated in either non-contingent reinforcement or timeout. Pecking during a trial produced either green (positive) or red (negative) keylights. If no pecking occurred no differential stimuli appeared. The probability of positive trials was either 0.25, 0.50, or 0.75. Observing response rates and relative frequencies of occurrence were highest when the probability of positive trials was 0.25 and lowest at 0.75. In Experiment II, a modified chain procedure was used in which responding produced either red or green lights. Reinforcement or timeout followed light onset by 15 sec. The correlation between the stimuli and the event at the end of the trial (reinforcement or timeout) was varied. Reinforcement followed green 100%, 90%, 70%, or 50% of the time that green occurred. Since the overall probability of reinforcement remained at 0.50, reinforcement followed red in either 0%, 10%, 30%, or 50% of the time that it occurred. The rate of responses that produced these stimuli varied as a function of the correlation. The greater the probability of reinforcement after green, the higher the response rate.     

Sensation seeking and the aversive motivational system

Sensation seeking (SS) has traditionally been viewed as a phenomenon of the appetitive motivational system. The limited SS research exploring contributions from the aversive motivational system reveals greater anxious reactivity to dangerous activities among low sensation seekers. The present study extends this line of work by comparing levels of fear and anxiety during anticipation of predictable and unpredictable aversive stimuli across high- and low-SS groups. Low sensation seekers displayed greater fear-potentiated startle (FPS) to predictable aversive stimuli, and only those low on SS showed FPS and skin conductance response effects during experimental contexts in which aversive stimuli were delivered unpredictably. Findings implicate enhanced apprehensive anticipation among those low on SS as a potential deterrent for their participation in intense and threatening stimulus events.     

Dissociations between Covariation Bias and Expectancy Bias for Fear-relevant Stimuli

The illusory correlation paradigm of Tomarken, Mineka, and Cook (1989) was used to examine bias in threat appraisal for biological (snake, spider) and technological (gun, knife) fear-relevant stimuli. Subjects showed bias in terms of higher on-line shock expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, and higher post-experimental judgements of shock covariation, for fear-relevant stimuli. However, there were multiple dissociations between the measures: (1) expectancy bias was observed for both biological and technological stimuli, whereas covariation bias was restricted to biological stimuli; (2) prior fear of the target stimulus had no effect on expectancy bias, but covariation bias was restricted to high fear subjects; and (3) covariation bias was observed at the end of the experiment, by which time expectancy bias had disappeared. These results suggest that covariation bias is not simply a continuation of a pre-experimental expectancy bias.     

Dissociating expectancy of shock and changes in skin conductance: an investigation of the Perruchet effect using an electrodermal paradigm

Is human Pavlovian conditioning driven by a unitary, propositional system (as claimed by Mitchell, De Houwer, & Lovibond, 2009) or by dual systems; one under conscious control, symbolic in nature, and requiring effort to deploy, and the other utilizing associative processes and automatic in its operation (McLaren, Green, & Mackintosh, 1994)? Past research has suggested that for electrodermal conditioning to occur in humans, conscious awareness of the contingencies is necessary to produce conditioned responding (e.g., Hinchy, Lovibond, & Ter-Horst, 1995), as predicted by single process theories that attribute the conditioned response (CR) to conscious expectancy of the shock. In this article, the authors examined the Perruchet effect (Perruchet, 1985), using an electrodermal paradigm to determine whether there is any role for associative processes in human electrodermal conditioning. The authors attempted to replicate the basic effect, whereby expectancy of an unconditioned stimulus (US) increases over a run of nonreinforced trials while the CR to the conditional stimulus (CS) declines, and the complementary pattern in which expectancy decreases over a run of reinforced trials while the CR to the CS grows in strength. In line with these patterns, the change in skin conductance response (our CR) as a function of US run length was found to follow a linear trend opposite to that of conscious expectancy of shock with respect to US run length. This dissociation supports a dual-processing system account of human Pavlovian conditioning, with conscious, controlled processes governing expectancy (and subject to the gambler's fallacy), whereas automatic, associative processes determine at least some of the strength of the CR to the CS.     

Anticipation of cognitive demand during decision-making

An abundance of evidence indicates that action selection is guided, at least in certain contexts, by anticipation of action outcomes. In one particularly clear demonstration of this principle, Bechara and colleagues, studying a gambling task, observed phasic skin conductance responses just prior to actions associated with a relatively high risk of monetary loss (Bechara et al. in J Neurosci 19:5473–5481, 1999; Bechara et al. in Science 275:1293–1295, 1997; Bechara et al. in Cereb Cortex 6:215–225, 1996). In the present work, we tested for the same effect in a paradigm where choices resulted not in differential monetary outcomes, but in differential requirements for subsequent mental effort. In two experiments, we observed an anticipatory skin conductance response prior to actions resulting in a high level of cognitive demand. This finding indicates that requirements for effortful cognitive control are anticipated during action selection. We argue, based on convergent evidence, that such anticipation may not only trigger preparation; it may also play a direct role in effort-based decision-making.