Krypotos Angelos-Miltiadis, Engelhard Iris M
Department of Clinical Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Department of Clinical Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2018 Sep;60:22-28. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2018.02.006. Epub 2018 Feb 19.
Excessive avoidance towards non-dangerous cues is a key diagnostic criterion across anxiety-related disorders. Despite current therapies being successful in reducing such avoidance, relapse rates remain high. Based on recent findings, according to which learned fear responses were reduced after the presentation of the fear stimulus with a novel-neutral event (novel-based extinction), we tested whether novel-based extinction could diminish conditioned avoidance.
Forty-six participants completed a Pavlovian acquisition procedure during which two pictures of a spider were presented, one of which (CS) was always followed by a shock (US), while the other (CS) was never followed by a US. Next, participants learned that they could avoid the shock by pressing a computer button. An extinction and response procedure followed. During this phase, the control group was presented with both CSs that were not followed by the US. The experimental group encountered both CSs, but the CS was followed by a neutral event (i.e., presentation of a tone). Return of avoidance (i.e., button presses) and fear (i.e., US-expectancies and fear-ratings) towards both CSs was tested after three unexpected presentations of the US.
Similar levels of return of avoidance and explicit fear were found for both groups.
We collected no physiological measures of fear and we assessed only the short-term effects of our manipulation.
Our results do not support the hypothesis that novelty-based extinction reduces avoidance responses. This study can serve as a first exploration of novelty-based extinction for reducing avoidance and explicit measures of fear.
对非危险线索的过度回避是焦虑相关障碍的关键诊断标准。尽管目前的治疗方法在减少这种回避行为方面取得了成功，但复发率仍然很高。基于最近的研究结果，即通过呈现恐惧刺激与新的中性事件（基于新奇的消退）后，习得的恐惧反应会减少，我们测试了基于新奇的消退是否能减少条件性回避。
46名参与者完成了一项巴甫洛夫式习得程序，在此过程中呈现两张蜘蛛图片，其中一张（条件刺激）总是伴随着电击（非条件刺激），而另一张（条件刺激）从不伴随非条件刺激。接下来，参与者了解到他们可以通过按下电脑按钮来避免电击。随后是消退和反应程序。在此阶段，对照组呈现的两个条件刺激都不伴随非条件刺激。实验组也遇到了两个条件刺激，但条件刺激之后伴随着一个中性事件（即呈现一个音调）。在意外呈现三次非条件刺激后，测试了对两个条件刺激的回避恢复（即按钮按压）和恐惧（即非条件刺激预期和恐惧评分）。
两组的回避恢复和明确恐惧水平相似。
我们没有收集恐惧的生理指标，并且只评估了我们操作的短期效果。
我们的结果不支持基于新奇的消退会减少回避反应的假设。这项研究可以作为对基于新奇的消退以减少回避和明确恐惧测量的首次探索。
