Maladaptive behavioral consequences of conditioned fear-generalization: A pronounced, yet sparsely studied, feature of anxiety pathology

Abstract

Fear-conditioning experiments in the anxiety disorders focus almost exclusively on passive-emotional, Pavlovian conditioning, rather than active-behavioral, instrumental conditioning. Paradigms eliciting both types of conditioning are needed to study maladaptive, instrumental behaviors resulting from Pavlovian abnormalities found in clinical anxiety. One such Pavlovian abnormality is generalization of fear from a conditioned danger-cue (CS+) to resembling stimuli. Though lab-based findings repeatedly link overgeneralized Pavlovian-fear to clinical anxiety, no study assesses the degree to which Pavlovian overgeneralization corresponds with maladaptive, overgeneralized instrumental-avoidance. The current effort fills this gap by validating a novel fear-potentiated startle paradigm including Pavlovian and instrumental components. The paradigm is embedded in a computer game during which shapes appear on the screen. One shape paired with electric-shock serves as CS+, and other resembling shapes, presented in the absence of shock, serve as generalization stimuli (GSs). During the game, participants choose whether to behaviorally avoid shock at the cost of poorer performance. Avoidance during CS+ is considered adaptive because shock is a real possibility. By contrast, avoidance during GSs is considered maladaptive because shock is not a realistic prospect and thus unnecessarily compromises performance. Results indicate significant Pavlovian-instrumental relations, with greater generalization of Pavlovian fear associated with overgeneralization of maladaptive instrumental-avoidance.

Fear Generalization in Humans: Systematic Review and Implications for Anxiety Disorder Research

“…In a recent study, this fear generalization test was embedded in an instrumental computer game ("virtual farmer") where shocks could be avoided at the cost of poorer performance in the game (van Meurs, Wiggert, Wicker, & Lissek, 2014). The extent of generalization found with a measure of Pavlovian conditioning (fear-potentiated startle) correlated with generalization of the instrumental response (avoidance).…”

“…Avoidance may become debilitating and lead to impaired social functioning and, because of this, it is often the sole target of therapeutic change. While there is evidence for perceptual generalization of avoidance (Lommen et al, 2010;van Meurs et al, 2014), extending the analysis of symbolic generalization to include instances of avoidance is important in developing contemporary accounts of the emergence of clinical anxiety (Field, 2006;Friman, Hayes, & Wilson, 1998;Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006;Rachman, 1977). The first supporting evidence for this approach comes from Augustson and Dougher (1997), who trained and tested participants for the formation of two, four-member stimulus equivalence relations (A1-B1-C1-D1 and A2-B2-C2-D2) and then used a differential fear conditioning procedure to establish B1 as CS+ and BS as CS-, respectively.…”

Generalisation of fear and avoidance along a semantic continuum

“…By pairing a hybrid colour created using both blue and green with electric shock (CS+) and pairing either blue or green with the absence of shock (CS-), they demonstrated an increase in skin conductance responses (SCRs) to the colour most unlike the CS-and closer in similarity to the CS+ (see also Dunsmoor, Mitroff, & LaBar, 2009;Vervliet & Geens, 2014;Vervliet, Kindt, Vansteenwegen, & Hermans, 2010). These findings have clinical relevance to the extent that anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder may involve an overgeneralisation of fear and avoidance responses via physical dimensions (Lissek, 2012;Lissek et al, 2008;van Meurs, Wiggert, Wicker, & Lissek, 2014).…”

“…This research extends upon the semantic generalisation research and contributes to our understanding of the conditions and boundary conditions of generalisation. The most important contribution in this regard is the introduction of an avoidance response into the generalisation paradigm (see also van Meurs et al, 2014). This is important because the core problem in anxiety conditions is not necessarily fear itself but excessive avoidance, which has been implicated as a core process in many pathological forms of anxiety (Dymond & Roche, 2009;Lissek, 2012;van Meurs et al, 2014).…”

“…The most important contribution in this regard is the introduction of an avoidance response into the generalisation paradigm (see also van Meurs et al, 2014). This is important because the core problem in anxiety conditions is not necessarily fear itself but excessive avoidance, which has been implicated as a core process in many pathological forms of anxiety (Dymond & Roche, 2009;Lissek, 2012;van Meurs et al, 2014). Indeed, anxiety and avoidance are a fundamental aspect of human adaptive behaviour (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999), but we have some way to go in understanding the conditions under which they become extensive and excessive.…”