Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Cogn Emot. 2012;26(7):1256-72. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2012.656581. Epub 2012 May 3.
Avoidance behaviour is a crucial component of fear and is importantly involved in the maintenance of anxiety disorders. Presumably, fear conditioning leads to avoidance of the feared object or context. A virtual reality contextual fear conditioning paradigm was used to investigate the association between explicit conditioning effects and subsequent avoidance behaviour. Mild electric shocks were administered in one context (anxiety context), but never in a second context (safety context). Subsequent avoidance behaviour was assessed by asking participants to choose two out of three contexts (a neutral context was added) to visit again. Participants avoided the anxiety context, but did not prefer the safety over the neutral context. Participants with substantial conditioning effects, as reflected in differential valence, arousal and anxiety ratings, avoided the anxiety context but not the safety context. In sum, we demonstrated an association between context conditioning effects on an explicit level and later avoidance behaviour.
回避行为是恐惧的一个关键组成部分，并且在焦虑障碍的维持中起着重要作用。据推测，恐惧条件作用导致对恐惧对象或情境的回避。使用虚拟现实情境恐惧条件作用范式来研究明显的条件作用效应与随后的回避行为之间的关联。在一个情境中（焦虑情境）给予轻微的电击，但从未在第二个情境中（安全情境）给予电击。通过让参与者从三个情境中选择两个（增加了一个中性情境）再次访问来评估随后的回避行为。参与者回避了焦虑情境，但并没有选择安全情境而不是中性情境。在明显的价值、唤醒和焦虑评分上表现出显著条件作用效应的参与者回避了焦虑情境，但没有回避安全情境。总之，我们证明了在显式水平上的情境条件作用效应与后来的回避行为之间存在关联。
