Department of Psychology (Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy), University of Würzburg, Marcusstraße 9-11, 97070, Würzburg, Germany; Department of Psychology, Educational Sciences, and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062, PA, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Department of Psychology (Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy), University of Würzburg, Marcusstraße 9-11, 97070, Würzburg, Germany; Translational Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Nägelsbachstraße 49b, 91052, Erlangen, Germany.
Behav Res Ther. 2022 Sep;156:104158. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2022.104158. Epub 2022 Jul 5.
Excessive generalization of safety behavior to innocuous stimuli that resemble a feared stimulus is oftentimes pathological especially with inflicted impairments. Safety behavior is conventionally assessed dichotomously, requiring multiple presentations of each test stimulus for assessing the proportion of safety behavior executed. Thus, the generalization gradient confounds with ongoing extinction learning during non-reinforced test trials. The present study employed a recently developed dimensional measure of avoidance to examine the extent of safety behavior generalization. We found that a dimensional measure of avoidance was able to assess the generalization gradients of safety behavior even when each test stimulus was presented once, thus minimizing the effect of ongoing extinction learning. Of equal importance is whether higher-order cognitive processes shape generalization of safety behavior. We found a range of distinct generalization gradients in safety behavior, which were highly consistent with participants' verbally reported relational rules. This rule-based generalization parallels to how clinically anxious individuals develop different threat beliefs after trauma exposure, and models how these distinct threat beliefs determine the extent of safety behavior engagement.
对类似于恐惧刺激的无害刺激过度泛化安全行为通常是病态的，尤其是在受到伤害的情况下。安全行为通常是二分法评估的，需要多次呈现每个测试刺激，以评估执行安全行为的比例。因此，在非强化测试试验期间，泛化梯度与正在进行的消退学习混淆。本研究采用了最近开发的回避的维度测量来检查安全行为泛化的程度。我们发现，即使每个测试刺激只呈现一次，回避的维度测量也能够评估安全行为的泛化梯度，从而最大限度地减少正在进行的消退学习的影响。同样重要的是，高阶认知过程是否会影响安全行为的泛化。我们发现安全行为的泛化梯度存在一系列明显的差异，这与参与者口头报告的关系规则高度一致。这种基于规则的泛化类似于临床焦虑个体在创伤暴露后如何形成不同的威胁信念，以及这些不同的威胁信念如何决定安全行为参与的程度。
