Extinction in fear conditioning: effects on startle modulation and evaluative self-reports.
A basic feature of human evaluative conditioning is that the reported acquired valence of a previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) that has been paired with a valenced unconditioned stimulus (US), is resistant to extinction. The present study investigated whether startle modulation, sometimes presented as an index of acquired valence, reflected this basic feature. In a differential fear conditioning paradigm (n = 38) with an electrocutaneous stimulus as the US, a strong extinction manipulation was conducted by removing the US-electrodes and by extended extinction trials. At the end of extinction, the results corroborated previous findings of evaluative conditioning in that the reported valence for CS+ was still more negative than for CS-, despite disappearance of the differential skin conductance responses. However, startle modulation did not show resistance-to-extinction. Results were discussed in terms of recent conceptualizations of extinction.
Vansteenwegen
D
D
Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Belgium.
Crombez
G
G
Baeyens
F
F
Eelen
P
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D005108:Extinction, Psychological; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013216:Reflex, Startle