Aslanidou Asimina, Andreatta Marta, Wong Alex H K, Wieser Matthias J
Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam 3000 DR, The Netherlands.
Department of General Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen, D-72076, Germany.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2025 Jan 4;20(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae097.
Fear of threatening contexts often generalizes to similar safe contexts, but few studies have investigated how contextual information influences cue generalization. In this study, we explored whether fear responses to cues would generalize more broadly in a threatening compared to a safe context. Forty-seven participants underwent a differential cue-in-context conditioning protocol followed by a generalization test, while we recorded psychophysiological and subjective responses. Two faces appeared on a computer screen in two contexts. One face (CS+) in the threat context (CTX+) was followed by a female scream 80% of the time, while another face (CS-) was not reinforced. No faces were reinforced in the safe context (CTX-). In the generalization test, the CSs and four morphs varying in similarity with the CS+ were presented in both contexts. During acquisition, conditioned responses to the cues were registered for all measures and the differential responding between CS+ and CS- was higher in CTX+ for US-expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, but the affective ratings and steady-state visual evoked potentials were not context-sensitive. During test, adaptive generalized responses were evident for all measures. Despite increased US-expectancy ratings in CTX+, participants exhibited similar cue generalization in both contexts, suggesting that threatening contexts do not influence cue generalization.
对威胁性情境的恐惧通常会泛化到类似的安全情境中，但很少有研究探讨情境信息如何影响线索泛化。在本研究中，我们探究了与安全情境相比，对线索的恐惧反应在威胁性情境中是否会更广泛地泛化。47名参与者接受了一种情境线索差异条件反射程序，随后进行了泛化测试，同时我们记录了心理生理和主观反应。在两种情境下，电脑屏幕上会出现两张脸。在威胁性情境（CTX+）中，一张脸（CS+）80%的情况下会伴随着女性尖叫声，而另一张脸（CS-）则不会得到强化。在安全情境（CTX-）中，没有脸会得到强化。在泛化测试中，在两种情境下都呈现了CS以及与CS+相似度不同的四种变形。在习得阶段，所有测量指标都记录到了对线索的条件反应，对于预期电击评分和皮肤电导率反应，CS+和CS-之间的差异反应在CTX+中更高，但情感评分和稳态视觉诱发电位对情境不敏感。在测试阶段，所有测量指标都出现了适应性泛化反应。尽管在CTX+中预期电击评分有所增加，但参与者在两种情境下表现出相似的线索泛化，这表明威胁性情境不会影响线索泛化。
