Specificity of disgust sensitivity in the prediction of behavioral avoidance in contamination fear

This study examined the specificity of disgust sensitivity in predicting contamination-related anxiety and behavioral avoidance. Participants high (n=26) and low (n=30) in contamination fear completed self-report measures of disgust sensitivity, contamination cognitions (overestimation of the likelihood and severity of contamination from everyday objects), anxiety, and depression. They then completed three randomly presented contamination-based behavioral avoidance tasks (BATs) that consisted of exposure to a used comb, a cookie on the floor, and a bedpan filled with toilet water. Results indicated that disgust sensitivity was significantly associated with anxious and avoidant responding to the contamination-related BATs. This association remained largely intact after controlling for gender, contamination fear group membership, anxiety, and depression. Contamination cognitions were also significantly related to BAT responses. However, this relationship was fully mediated by disgust sensitivity. These findings indicate that disgust sensitivity has a specific and robust association with contamination concerns commonly observed in obsessive compulsive disorder. The findings are discussed in the context of a disease-avoidance model.     

Many stimuli are frightening,but some are more frightening than others: The contributions of preparedness,dangerousness, and unpredictability to making a stimulus fearful

The nonrandom distribution of situational fears has been explained by evolutionary survival relevance of specific fears. Thirty-eight stimuli were taken from the literature on preparedness and were scored on fearfulness, objective dangerousness, and spatiotemporal unpredictability by three separate groups of students. The same items were scored on survival relevance by 15 biologists. Fearfulness of cues significantly correlated not only with survival relevance but also, and even more strongly, with dangerousness and unpredictability. While the fear/survival relevance association virtually disappeared when the unpredictability contribution was partialed out, the fear/unpredictability correlation was only marginally affected when controlling for survival relevance. This suggests that nonrandomness of feared stimuli may result from the spatiotemporal unpredictability that is attributed to these stimuli. The current practice of using snakes and spiders as phobia-relevant, and flowers and mushrooms as neutral, cues was not justified by the ratings of the 15 independent experts.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon, 560-268-001).     

Beyond Fear Emotional Memory Mechanisms in the Human Brain

ABSTRACT— Neurobiological accounts of emotional memory have been derived largely from animal models investigating the encoding and retention of memories for events that signal threat. This literature has implicated the amygdala, a structure in the brain's temporal lobe, in the learning and consolidation of fear memories. Its role in fear conditioning has been confirmed, but the human amygdala also interacts with cortical regions to mediate other aspects of emotional memory. These include the encoding and consolidation of pleasant and unpleasant arousing events into long-term memory, the narrowing of focus on central emotional information, the retrieval of prior emotional events and contexts, and the subjective experience of recollection and emotional intensity during retrieval. Along with other mechanisms that do not involve the amygdala, these functions ensure that significant life events leave a lasting impression in memory.     

The transfer of respondent eliciting and extinction functions through stimulus equivalence classes

Two studies investigated the transfer of respondent elicitation through equivalence classes. In Experiment 1, match-to-sample procedures were used to teach 8 subjects two four-member equivalence classes. One member of one class was then paired with electric shock, and one member of the other class was presented without shock. All remaining stimuli were then presented. Using skin conductance as the measure of conditioning, transfer of conditioning was demonstrated in 6 of the 8 subjects. In Experiment 2, similar procedures were used to replicate the results of Experiment 1 and investigate the transfer of extinction. Following equivalence training and conditioning to all members of one class, one member was then presented in extinction. When the remaining stimuli from this class were then presented, they failed to elicit skin conductance. In the final phase of the experiment, the stimulus that was previously presented in extinction was reconditioned. Test trials with other members of the class revealed that they regained elicitation function. These results demonstrate that both respondent elicitation and extinction can transfer through stimulus classes. The clinical and applied significance of the results is discussed.     

Parent–child attachment as a mediator of the relationship between parenting style and gelotophobia among adolescents

Fear of being laughed at and family interaction are highly related. Parental over‐control and over‐protection influence children's excessive anxiety over being laughed at. Conversely, parental attachment is an important index of the parent–child relationship and is closely correlated to children's gelotophobia. However, is it the style of parenting or the outcome of parenting (i.e. attachment) that influences a child's gelotophobia? To answer this question, the present study analysed the relationships between gelotophobia, perceived parenting of children and parent–child attachment, as well as the mediating role of attachment between parenting and children's gelotophobia, using a sample of 373 high‐school students. The results show that being highly communicative and close attachment completely weakened the negative correlation between warm, caring parenting and the child's gelotophobia; moreover, being highly communicative and close attachment, together with over‐protective and over‐controlling parenting, influence children's gelotophobia. In sum, this study indicates that parent–child attachment has a direct and indirect influence on perceived parental care and protection and children's fear of being laughed at.     

对条件化恐惧反应的抑制效应:指导性与习惯性情绪调节的作用

为了考察实验室指导性与个体习惯性情绪调控策略对恐惧反应的影响,先使用问卷调查了81名大学生的习惯性重评与抑制水平,随后将被试分为两组,指导其在条件化恐惧习得过程中进行主动的情绪调节或自然观看,24h后进行恐惧的表达测试。结果发现,习惯性抑制水平与恐惧习得及表达水平呈显著负相关,且指导性情绪调节与习惯性抑制均显著降低了恐惧习得及表达水平。这提示指导性与习惯性情绪调节策略均能够削弱应激的伤害以保护个体。     

The time course of attentional bias to cues of threat and safety

It is well known that relative to neutral stimuli, attention is biased towards processing stimuli that convey threat. In a previous study in which a particular stimulus (e.g. a blue diamond) was associated with the delivery of an electrical shock, the presence of the fear-conditioned stimulus interfered with the execution of voluntary eye movements to other locations. Here, we show that this effect not only occurs early in time, but remains present long after the fear-conditioned stimulus was removed from the screen. In a subsequent experiment, we associated the presence of a particular stimulus with safety, that is, when this stimulus was present it was certain that no electrical shock would be delivered. The presence of the safety signalling stimulus also interfered with the execution of voluntary saccades, but only when the time between stimulus and cue presentation was relatively long. The results indicate that both signals of threat and signals of safety interfere with execution of a saccade long after the source of threat or safety has been removed. However, only threatening stimuli affect saccade execution early in time, suggesting that threatening stimuli drive selection exogenously.     

Differential memory-preserving effects of reminders at 6 months

Although reactivation and reinstatement reminders differ procedurally, differences in their memory-preserving effects have been described as artifactual. In three experiments, we examined this conclusion. One hundred and twelve 6-month-olds learned an operant task, forgot it, received a reactivation or reinstatement reminder to recover the inactive memory, and were tested after increasing delays until they forgot it again. In Experiments 1a and 1b, a single reactivation reminder extended infants' memory of an operant mobile task for 2 weeks after reminding, but a single reinstatement extended it for 4 weeks, when testing was discontinued. In Experiment 2, a single reinstatement extended 6-month-olds' memory of an operant train task for 19 weeks after reminding, when infants were almost 1 year old. After reactivation, infants remember this task for only 2 weeks. The finding that the memory-preserving effect of reinstatement is greater by an order of magnitude suggests that procedural differences between the two reminders have functional significance.     

Interactive learning in the paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis): an ethological interpretation of the second-order conditioning paradigm

This study was aimed at the examination of ‘mental construction’ in paradise fish by interactive learning, which is suggested as an alternative hypothesis for backward or second-order conditioning. Avoidance of goldfish was established in paradise fish by presenting a harmless goldfish (a novel stimulus) after an aversive event (mild electric shocks) in the dark compartment of a shuttle tank. It was found that this avoidance depended on context pre-exposure. Experiment 1 was designed to study the effect of mild shocks on shuttling activity in a familiar context. Experiment 2 aimed at establishing fear-conditioning to the goldfish in a higher-order conditioning paradigm. In the course of training, unpaired stimuli were presented in the dark compartment of the shuttle tank in such a manner that the presentation of mild shocks (20 mA) preceded the encounter with a harmless fish (goldfish). Experiment 3 demonstrated the role of context pre-exposure in interactive learning. Results indicate that (1) while 60 mA shocks resulted in avoidance of the dark compartment, the 20 mA mild shocks affected exploratory behaviour; (2) after pre-exposure to the training environment, paradise fish avoided the dark compartment containing goldfish provided that subjects had previously encountered mild, explorative shocks there; (3) this conditioned fear, a ‘mental construction’ of a potential danger, was proved to be transferable to another context and was consequently aimed specifically at the goldfish, a living being, rather than the training context; (4) the pre-exposure to the shuttle tank was an important part of this training procedure, that is, only subjects habituated to the shuttle tank avoided the goldfish. Results are discussed in the framework of the Interactive Learning Hypothesis, which has been developed as an ethological approach to a higher-order conditioning paradigm. Received: 15 January 1999 / Accepted after revision: 18 August 1999