Mertens Gaëtan, De Houwer Jan
Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Biol Psychol. 2016 Jan;113:91-9. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.11.014. Epub 2015 Nov 30.
In the context of fear conditioning, different psychophysiological measures have been related to different learning processes. Specifically, skin conductance responses (SCRs) have been related to cognitive expectancy learning, while fear potentiated startle (FPS) has been proposed to reflect affective learning that operates according to simple associative learning principles. On the basis of this two level account of fear conditioning we predicted that FPS should be less affected by verbal instructions and more affected by direct experience than SCRs. We tested this hypothesis by informing participants that contingencies would be reversed after a differential conditioning phase. Our results indicate that contingency reversal instructions led to an immediate and complete reversal of FPS regardless of the previous conditioning history. This change was accompanied by similar changes on US expectancy ratings and SCRs. These results conform with an expectancy model of fear conditioning but argue against a two level account of fear conditioning.
在恐惧条件作用的背景下，不同的心理生理测量方法与不同的学习过程相关。具体而言，皮肤电传导反应（SCRs）与认知预期学习相关，而恐惧增强惊吓反应（FPS）则被认为反映了根据简单联想学习原则运作的情感学习。基于这种对恐惧条件作用的两级解释，我们预测，与SCRs相比，FPS受言语指令的影响较小，而受直接经验的影响较大。我们通过告知参与者在差异条件作用阶段后条件会反转来检验这一假设。我们的结果表明，无论之前的条件作用历史如何，条件反转指令都会导致FPS立即且完全反转。这种变化伴随着对预期刺激的评分和SCRs的类似变化。这些结果符合恐惧条件作用的预期模型，但与恐惧条件作用的两级解释相悖。
