Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs

Since Watson and Rayner's (1920) initial demonstration that human fear can be learned by means of Pavlovian conditioning, neuroscientific and behavioral studies have provided a thorough understanding of fear acquisition. Less is known about the manner in which we can harness insights from Pavlo...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lipp, Ottmar, Waters, A.M., Luck, Camilla, Ryan, K.M., Craske, M.G.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1156490
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79155
_version_ 1848764011385978880
author Lipp, Ottmar
Waters, A.M.
Luck, Camilla
Ryan, K.M.
Craske, M.G.
author_facet Lipp, Ottmar
Waters, A.M.
Luck, Camilla
Ryan, K.M.
Craske, M.G.
author_sort Lipp, Ottmar
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Since Watson and Rayner's (1920) initial demonstration that human fear can be learned by means of Pavlovian conditioning, neuroscientific and behavioral studies have provided a thorough understanding of fear acquisition. Less is known about the manner in which we can harness insights from Pavlovian conditioning research to reduce fears and, most importantly, make the reduction of fear lasting and resistant against relapse. The current paper reviews three manipulations that have shown promise in achieving a reduction of conditional fear that is more resistant to relapse than is the reduction of conditional fear after standard extinction: novelty-facilitated extinction training, presentation of conditional-unconditional stimulus pairings or of unpaired unconditional stimuli during extinction, and extinction with additional stimuli that are similar to the original conditional stimuli. It summarizes past research involving human and non-human animal subjects and highlights knowledge gaps in the current literature. Moreover, it discusses potential mechanisms that mediate the reduction of fear seen as a result of these manipulations in an attempt to enhance our understanding of what renders fear extinction less vulnerable to the known pathways to fear relapse. It is hoped that this review will contribute to the achievement of the goal that was denied to Watson and Rayner, the development of experimental techniques that can be utilized to remove conditioned emotional responses permanently.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T11:12:34Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-79155
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:12:34Z
publishDate 2020
publisher PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-791552021-12-10T00:45:43Z Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs Lipp, Ottmar Waters, A.M. Luck, Camilla Ryan, K.M. Craske, M.G. Social Sciences Psychology, Clinical Psychology Fear conditioning Extinction Novelty-facilitated extinction Gradual extinction Generalization of extinction OCCASIONAL REINFORCED TRIALS FACILITATED EXTINCTION MULTIPLE CONTEXTS CONDITIONED FEAR STIMULUS RETURN EXPOSURE RECONSOLIDATION REACQUISITION RESPONSES Since Watson and Rayner's (1920) initial demonstration that human fear can be learned by means of Pavlovian conditioning, neuroscientific and behavioral studies have provided a thorough understanding of fear acquisition. Less is known about the manner in which we can harness insights from Pavlovian conditioning research to reduce fears and, most importantly, make the reduction of fear lasting and resistant against relapse. The current paper reviews three manipulations that have shown promise in achieving a reduction of conditional fear that is more resistant to relapse than is the reduction of conditional fear after standard extinction: novelty-facilitated extinction training, presentation of conditional-unconditional stimulus pairings or of unpaired unconditional stimuli during extinction, and extinction with additional stimuli that are similar to the original conditional stimuli. It summarizes past research involving human and non-human animal subjects and highlights knowledge gaps in the current literature. Moreover, it discusses potential mechanisms that mediate the reduction of fear seen as a result of these manipulations in an attempt to enhance our understanding of what renders fear extinction less vulnerable to the known pathways to fear relapse. It is hoped that this review will contribute to the achievement of the goal that was denied to Watson and Rayner, the development of experimental techniques that can be utilized to remove conditioned emotional responses permanently. 2020 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79155 10.1016/j.brat.2019.103529 English http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1156490 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD fulltext
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Psychology, Clinical
Psychology
Fear conditioning
Extinction
Novelty-facilitated extinction
Gradual extinction
Generalization of extinction
OCCASIONAL REINFORCED TRIALS
FACILITATED EXTINCTION
MULTIPLE CONTEXTS
CONDITIONED FEAR
STIMULUS
RETURN
EXPOSURE
RECONSOLIDATION
REACQUISITION
RESPONSES
Lipp, Ottmar
Waters, A.M.
Luck, Camilla
Ryan, K.M.
Craske, M.G.
Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs
title Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs
title_full Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs
title_fullStr Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs
title_full_unstemmed Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs
title_short Novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: The roles of novelty, additional USs, and additional GSs
title_sort novel approaches for strengthening human fear extinction: the roles of novelty, additional uss, and additional gss
topic Social Sciences
Psychology, Clinical
Psychology
Fear conditioning
Extinction
Novelty-facilitated extinction
Gradual extinction
Generalization of extinction
OCCASIONAL REINFORCED TRIALS
FACILITATED EXTINCTION
MULTIPLE CONTEXTS
CONDITIONED FEAR
STIMULUS
RETURN
EXPOSURE
RECONSOLIDATION
REACQUISITION
RESPONSES
url http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1156490
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79155