Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning

Abstract Previous research indicates that excessive fear is a critical feature in anxiety disorders; however, recent studies suggest that disgust may also contribute to the etiology and maintenance of some anxiety disorders. It remains unclear if differences exist between these two threat-related em...

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Autores principales:	Jinxia Wang, Xiaoying Sun, Jiachen Lu, HaoRan Dou, Yi Lei
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6939eb152dd54d118a66b11985b92097
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6939eb152dd54d118a66b11985b920972021-12-02T15:23:06ZGeneralization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning10.1038/s41598-021-93544-72045-2322https://doaj.org/article/6939eb152dd54d118a66b11985b920972021-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93544-7https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Previous research indicates that excessive fear is a critical feature in anxiety disorders; however, recent studies suggest that disgust may also contribute to the etiology and maintenance of some anxiety disorders. It remains unclear if differences exist between these two threat-related emotions in conditioning and generalization. Evaluating different patterns of fear and disgust learning would facilitate a deeper understanding of how anxiety disorders develop. In this study, 32 college students completed threat conditioning tasks, including conditioned stimuli paired with frightening or disgusting images. Fear and disgust were divided into two randomly ordered blocks to examine differences by recording subjective US expectancy ratings and eye movements in the conditioning and generalization process. During conditioning, differing US expectancy ratings (fear vs. disgust) were found only on CS-, which may demonstrated that fear is associated with inferior discrimination learning. During the generalization test, participants exhibited greater US expectancy ratings to fear-related GS1 (generalized stimulus) and GS2 relative to disgust GS1 and GS2. Fear led to longer reaction times than disgust in both phases, and the pupil size and fixation duration for fear stimuli were larger than for disgust stimuli, suggesting that disgust generalization has a steeper gradient than fear generalization. These findings provide preliminary evidence for differences between fear- and disgust-related stimuli in conditioning and generalization, and suggest insights into treatment for anxiety and other fear- or disgust-related disorders.Jinxia WangXiaoying SunJiachen LuHaoRan DouYi LeiNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Jinxia Wang Xiaoying Sun Jiachen Lu HaoRan Dou Yi Lei Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning
description	Abstract Previous research indicates that excessive fear is a critical feature in anxiety disorders; however, recent studies suggest that disgust may also contribute to the etiology and maintenance of some anxiety disorders. It remains unclear if differences exist between these two threat-related emotions in conditioning and generalization. Evaluating different patterns of fear and disgust learning would facilitate a deeper understanding of how anxiety disorders develop. In this study, 32 college students completed threat conditioning tasks, including conditioned stimuli paired with frightening or disgusting images. Fear and disgust were divided into two randomly ordered blocks to examine differences by recording subjective US expectancy ratings and eye movements in the conditioning and generalization process. During conditioning, differing US expectancy ratings (fear vs. disgust) were found only on CS-, which may demonstrated that fear is associated with inferior discrimination learning. During the generalization test, participants exhibited greater US expectancy ratings to fear-related GS1 (generalized stimulus) and GS2 relative to disgust GS1 and GS2. Fear led to longer reaction times than disgust in both phases, and the pupil size and fixation duration for fear stimuli were larger than for disgust stimuli, suggesting that disgust generalization has a steeper gradient than fear generalization. These findings provide preliminary evidence for differences between fear- and disgust-related stimuli in conditioning and generalization, and suggest insights into treatment for anxiety and other fear- or disgust-related disorders.
format	article
author	Jinxia Wang Xiaoying Sun Jiachen Lu HaoRan Dou Yi Lei
author_facet	Jinxia Wang Xiaoying Sun Jiachen Lu HaoRan Dou Yi Lei
author_sort	Jinxia Wang
title	Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning
title_short	Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning
title_full	Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning
title_fullStr	Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning
title_full_unstemmed	Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning
title_sort	generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/6939eb152dd54d118a66b11985b92097
work_keys_str_mv	AT jinxiawang generalizationgradientsforfearanddisgustinhumanassociativelearning AT xiaoyingsun generalizationgradientsforfearanddisgustinhumanassociativelearning AT jiachenlu generalizationgradientsforfearanddisgustinhumanassociativelearning AT haorandou generalizationgradientsforfearanddisgustinhumanassociativelearning AT yilei generalizationgradientsforfearanddisgustinhumanassociativelearning
_version_	1718387330138505216

Generalization gradients for fear and disgust in human associative learning

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