Trait Anxiety and Fear Responses to Safety Cues: Stimulus Generalization or Sensitization?

Deficient safety learning characterizes high trait anxious individuals

“…Second, unawareness of the contingencies could not explain elevated fear responses to the CS2 − , since each participant was aware of the contingency (see also e.g., Craske et al, 2008a; see for similar conclusion review Lissek et al, 2005; but see e.g., Chan and Lovibond, 1996). Third, our findings show that the effects of high trait anxiety cannot be explained by a general difference in physiological habituation prior to the conditioning task (see for similar findings Haddad et al, 2012), as the experimental groups did not differ in (speed and strength of) habituation of startle responding. Nor did enhanced sensitization to the experimental context (see Grillon, 2002) explain the elevated startle responding, since no significant group differences were observed for startle responses during inter-trial intervals (ITIs).…”

“…Third, some consider non-associative processes responsible for explaining elevated fear, as responses to both CSs can be elevated due to a lack of physiological habituation (e.g., Clemens and Selesnick, 1967) or greater sensitization (i.e., enhanced responsiveness to stimuli in an aversive context; see Öhman and Mineka, 2001). Fourth, elevated fear expression to safety cues can also imply overgeneralization of fear (e.g., Grillon and Morgan, 1999;Lissek et al, 2008;Vervliet et al, 2004Vervliet et al, , 2005, resulting from a deficit in the processing of perceptual information that distinguishes threat cues from safety cues (e.g., Dirikx et al, 2007;Lissek et al, 2009;Haddad et al, 2012). Finally, the fear inhibition model attributes pathological fear to abnormalities in inhibitory fear mechanisms (Davis et al, 2000).…”

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

“…After acquisition, generalization stimuli were presented, which consisted of eight morphed pictures ranging in perceptual similarity from the CS+ to the CS-. Significant generalization was observed in fear ratings as well as fear-potentiated startle (see also Haddad, Pritchett, Lissek, & Lau, 2012). Even though the combination of a face displaying a fearful expression presented simultaneously with a 95 dB female scream might be less aversive than electric shock, this US has the advantage that it might be more suitable for testing younger age groups.…”

“…As described earlier, Haddad et al (2012) investigated fear conditioning in a specific procedure where a face picture served as CS+ and an angry face plus a scream as US, and a similar face (CS1-) as well as a grey oval (CS2-) that were never paired with the US. Fearfulness ratings, potentiated startle reflexes and skin conductance reactivity showed the expected fear gradient from the CS+ over CS1-to CS2-.…”

State anxiety modulates the return of fear

“…In our data, state anxietydependent differences in discrimination following reinstatement in SCRs were driven by genuine differences in CS discrimination which could not be attributed to response enhancement or decrement in any CS-type specifically. Previous studies have suggested deficient safety signal processing in high and pathological anxiety (Gazendam, Kamphuis, & Kindt, 2013;Haaker et al, 2015;Haddad, Pritchett, Lissek, & Lau, 2012;Kong, Monje, Hirsch, & Pollak, 2014) potentially contributing to generalized conditioned responding after adverse events (e.g. reinstatement, life events) in these individuals.…”