Abstract
Instructions given prior to extinction training facilitate the extinction of conditioned skin conductance (SCRs) and fear-potentiated startle responses (FPSs) and serve as laboratory models for cognitive interventions implemented in exposure-based treatments of pathological anxiety. Here, we investigated how instructions given prior to extinction training, with or without the additional removal of the electrode used to deliver the unconditioned stimulus (US), affect the return of fear assessed 24 hours later. We replicated previous instruction effects on extinction and added that the additional removal of the US electrode slightly enhanced facilitating effects on the extinction of conditioned FPSs. In contrast, extinction instructions hardly affected the return of conditioned fear responses. These findings suggest that instruction effects observed during extinction training do not extent to tests of return of fear 24 hours later which serve as laboratory models of relapse and improvement stability of exposure-based treatments.
Highlights
Instructions given prior to extinction training facilitate the extinction of conditioned skin conductance (SCRs) and fear-potentiated startle responses (FPSs) and serve as laboratory models for cognitive interventions implemented in exposure-based treatments of pathological anxiety
Facilitating effects of instructions have been observed for the extinction of conditioned fear-potentiated startle responses (FPS) as well[11,14,15,16], whereas conditioned CS valence ratings seem to be somewhat immune against instructions[13,15]
Sidak-corrected pairwise comparisons confirmed that the UE group showed generally smaller startle magnitudes than the VIE and the VIE-R group during pre-conditioning
Summary
Instructions given prior to extinction training facilitate the extinction of conditioned skin conductance (SCRs) and fear-potentiated startle responses (FPSs) and serve as laboratory models for cognitive interventions implemented in exposure-based treatments of pathological anxiety. Differences between outcome measures have been attributed to the multiple processes involved in fear learning, i.e., cognitive relational[17] or signal[18] learning as indexed by conditioned SCRs19 and US expectancy ratings[20], affective learning as indexed by conditioned FPSs21, and evaluative conditioning as indexed by conditioned CS liking or valence ratings[22] According to these assumptions, instructions given prior to extinction may immediately establish a CS-noUS association as expressed by indicators of relational learning, whereas affective learning is facilitated but additional congruent experiences may be needed to abolish defensive responding. The liking of the CS which signaled the US in the past (i.e., evaluative conditioning) is hardly affected by verbal instructions unless targeted with positive information about the CS24 In contrast to these short-term effects, research on the effects of verbal instructions given prior to extinction training on the return of fear is sparse which limits the potential clinical relevance of these findings. Physical threat removal prior to extinction training may moderate subsequent extinction retention depending on whether the threat is present during the retention test or not
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