Fear conditioning, meaning, and belongingness: a selective association analysis.
Twenty-three subjects rated the belongingness of pairs of conditionable (photographic slides) and unconditioned (e.g., shock, tone, human scream) stimuli. Forty new subjects were then classically conditioned, using rating-defined high (angry face/scream) and low (landscape/scream) belongingness pairs. Finger-pulse responses to the high-belongingness pairs showed superior acquisition and resistance to extinction. Another 40 subjects were conditioned to compound stimuli: a slide (either landscape or angry face) that was the same over trials, and a yellow or blue background that was the discriminant cue for the unconditioned stimulus (scream). When the angry face (the high-belongingness slide) was the invariant part of the compound, relatively poorer differential pulse-volume and skin-conductance conditioning was observed. Thus, depending on the task, a priori belongingness rendered stimuli selectively conditionable, either enhancing or inhibiting visceral response associations.
Hamm
A O
AO
Vaitl
D
D
Lang
P J
PJ
D001244:Association; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D005108:Extinction, Psychological; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D011674:Pulse