Xu Liang, Su Hongyu, Xie Xiaoyuan, Yan Pei, Li Junjiao, Zheng Xifu
School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Guangdong Communication Polytechnic, Guangzhou, China.
Front Psychol. 2018 Mar 28;9:409. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00409. eCollection 2018.
Fear generalization is an etiologically significant indicator of anxiety disorders, and understanding how to inhibit it is important in their treatment. Prior studies have found that reducing fear generalization using a generalization stimulus (GS) is ineffective in removing a conditioned fear that incorporates local features, and that topological properties appear to play a comparatively more significant role in the processes of perception and categorization. Our study utilized a conditioned-fear generalization design to examine whether the topological properties of stimuli influence the generalization and return of fear. Fear was indexed using online expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses (SCRs). The study's 52 participants were divided into three groups: Group 1, conditioned danger cue (CS+) extinction; Group 2, extinction of one GS; Group 3, extinction of three GSs. We found that the three groups acquired conditioned fear at the same level. In the generalization and extinction phase, fear was transferred to the GS with the same topological properties as CS+, and gradual decreases in both shock expectancy and SCRs over non-reinforced extinction trials were observed. In the test phase, participants' online expectancy ratings indicated that fear did not return in Group 1, but did return in Groups 2 and 3. All three groups demonstrated successful GS fear extinction, but only Group 1 did not show a return of fear for CS+. Regarding SCRs results, none of the groups demonstrated a return of fear, suggesting that utilization of topological properties successfully reduced the return of conditioned fear. Our results indicate that, in clinical settings, using GS with topological equivalence to CS+ might offer a potential method with which to extinct conditioned fear.
恐惧泛化是焦虑症在病因学上的一个重要指标，了解如何抑制恐惧泛化对焦虑症的治疗至关重要。先前的研究发现，使用泛化刺激（GS）来减少恐惧泛化对于消除包含局部特征的条件性恐惧是无效的，而且拓扑特性似乎在感知和分类过程中发挥着相对更重要的作用。我们的研究采用条件性恐惧泛化设计，以检验刺激的拓扑特性是否会影响恐惧的泛化和重现。通过在线预期评分和皮肤电导率反应（SCR）来衡量恐惧。该研究的52名参与者被分为三组：第一组，条件性危险线索（CS+）消退组；第二组，一个GS消退组；第三组，三个GS消退组。我们发现三组在相同水平上习得条件性恐惧。在泛化和消退阶段，恐惧转移到了与CS+具有相同拓扑特性的GS上，并且在无强化消退试验中观察到电击预期和SCR都逐渐下降。在测试阶段，参与者的在线预期评分表明，第一组的恐惧没有重现，但第二组和第三组的恐惧重现了。所有三组都成功实现了GS恐惧消退，但只有第一组没有出现CS+恐惧的重现。关于SCR结果，三组均未出现恐惧重现，这表明利用拓扑特性成功减少了条件性恐惧的重现。我们的结果表明，在临床环境中，使用与CS+具有拓扑等效性的GS可能提供一种消除条件性恐惧的潜在方法。
