Fear expression and return of fear following threat instruction with or without direct contingency experience |
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| Authors: | Gaëtan Mertens Manuel Kuhn An K. Raes Raffael Kalisch Jan De Houwer Tina B. Lonsdorf |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium;2. Institute for Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany;3. Artevelde University College Ghent, Ghent, Belgium;4. Neuroimaging Center Mainz, Focus Program Translational Neuroscience, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany |
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| Abstract: | Prior research showed that mere instructions about the contingency between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) can generate fear reactions to the CS. Little is known, however, about the extent to which actual CS–US contingency experience adds anything beyond the effect of contingency instructions. Our results extend previous studies on this topic in that it included fear potentiated startle as an additional dependent variable and examined return of fear (ROF) following reinstatement. We observed that CS–US pairings can enhance fear reactions beyond the effect of contingency instructions. Moreover, for all measures of fear, instructions elicited immediate fear reactions that could not be completely overridden by subsequent situational safety information. Finally, ROF following reinstatement for instructed CS+s was unaffected by actual experience. In summary, our results demonstrate the power of contingency instructions and reveal the additional impact of actual experience of CS–US pairings. |
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| Keywords: | Fear Conditioning Instructions Skin conductance response Fear potentiated startle |
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