Abstract
Pavlovian fear conditioning is widely used to study mechanisms of fear learning, but high-throughput studies are hampered by the labor-intensive nature of examining participants in the lab. To circumvent this bottle-neck, fear conditioning tasks have been developed for remote delivery. Previous studies have examined remotely delivered fear conditioning protocols using expectancy and affective ratings. Here we replicate and extend these findings using an internet-delivered version of the Screaming Lady paradigm, evaluating the effects on negative affective ratings and response time to an auditory probe during stimulus presentation. In a sample of 80 adults, we observed clear evidence of both fear acquisition and extinction using affective ratings. Response times were faster when probed early, but not later, during presentation of stimuli paired with an aversive scream. The response time findings are at odds with previous lab-based studies showing slower as opposed to faster responses to threat-predicting cues. The findings underscore the feasibility of employing remotely delivered fear conditioning paradigms with affective ratings as outcome. Findings further highlight the need for research examining optimal parameters for concurrent response time measures or alternate non-verbal indicators of conditioned responses in Pavlovian conditioning protocols.
Highlights
Pavlovian fear conditioning is widely used to study mechanisms of fear learning, but high-throughput studies are hampered by the labor-intensive nature of examining participants in the lab
Simple main effect analyses revealed a main effect of Stimulus after the acquisition phase (F(1,79) = 41.10; p < 0.001), where affective ratings of conditioned stimuli (CS)+ were higher compared to the CS−, but not during the pre-acquisition measurement (F(1,79) = 1.21; p = 0.275), where ratings were similar for the CS+ and CS−, see Fig. 2 and Table 1
The results showed a main effect of Phase (F(1,62) = 49.38; p < 0.001), where responses during acquisition (M = 579 ms; SD = 152 ms) where slower compared to extinction (M = 491 ms; SD = 159 ms), a main effect of Stimulus (F(1,62) = 4.72; p = 0.034), where responses across both phases were faster to the CS+ (M = 526 ms; SD = 158 ms) compared to the CS− (M = 544 ms; SD = 144 ms), but no Phase by Stimulus interaction (F(1,62) = 1.01; p = 0.319), see Fig. 4 and Fig. S2 where trial-by-trial data is displayed
Summary
Pavlovian fear conditioning is widely used to study mechanisms of fear learning, but high-throughput studies are hampered by the labor-intensive nature of examining participants in the lab. Lab-based studies can further our understanding of fear and extinction learning, they are both costly and labor intensive, requiring on-site testing with specialized lab equipment, which impedes studies requiring large sample sizes This problem could be mitigated by developing remotely-delivered experimental protocols. Through a dedicated smart-phone app using an aversive sound as US and self-report based outcome measures to quantify learning, i.e. US-expectancy and affective ratings, Purves et al.[14] were able to demonstrate both fear conditioning, extinction and generalization, with results comparable to in-lab testing. Previous lab-based studies using concurrent measures of reaction time have shown slower response times to an auditory probe during CS+ presentation compared to CS−17,18 This has been interpreted as an effect of attention capture by the CS+ and could be used as a learning index for fear conditioning and extinction. Since existing internet-based research tools that allow for reliable assessment of response time are freely a vailable[19–21], this is a promising avenue for developing non-verbal based fear learning indices suitable for remote delivery
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