title: Reduced autobiographical memory specificity is associated with impaired discrimination learning in anxiety disorder patients.
abstract: Associative learning plays an important role in the development of anxiety disorders, but a thorough understanding of the variables that impact such learning is still lacking. We investigated whether individual differences in autobiographical memory specificity are related to discrimination learning and generalization. In an associative learning task, participants learned the association between two pictures of female faces and a non-aversive outcome. Subsequently, six morphed pictures functioning as generalization stimuli (GSs) were introduced. In a sample of healthy participants (Study 1), we did not find evidence for differences in discrimination learning as a function of memory specificity. In a sample of anxiety disorder patients (Study 2), individuals who were characterized by low memory specificity showed deficient discrimination learning relative to high specific individuals. In contrast to previous findings, results revealed no effect of memory specificity on generalization. These results indicate that impaired discrimination learning, previously shown in patients suffering from an anxiety disorder, may be-in part-due to limited memory specificity. Together, these studies emphasize the importance of incorporating cognitive variables in associative learning theories and their implications for the development of anxiety disorders. In addition, re-analyses of the data (Study 3) showed that patients suffering from panic disorder showed higher outcome expectancies in the presence of the stimulus that was never followed by an outcome during discrimination training, relative to patients suffering from other anxiety disorders and healthy participants. Because we used a neutral, non-aversive outcome (i.e., drawing of a lightning bolt), these data suggest that learning abnormalities in panic disorder may not be restricted to fear learning, but rather reflect a more general associative learning deficit that also manifests in fear irrelevant contexts.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bert
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lenaert
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Yannick
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Boddez
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vervliet
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Maastricht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Koen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schruers
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hermans
keywords: anxiety; associative learning; autobiographical memory; discrimination learning; generalization