Dissociation During Acquisition And Generalization Of Emotional Conditioning Of Fear And Disgust

Fear generalization is a phenomenon that conditioned fear responses transfer to similar but innocuous stimuli.However,overgeneralization of fear can be maladaptive.Fear generalization dating back to Pavlov's conditioning reflex,which lays the foundation for theoretical approaches used today.Here,we begin with research on this conventional paradigm that shapes the principle of fear generalization.In this study,we found and summarized the confusion between the two emotions of fear and disgust in the selection of experimental materials in the laboratory.Base he problem of fuzzy definition of fear stimuli on fear generalization,through the questionnaire and experimental method,we completed the work of collecting,organizing and evaluating the pictures of fear and disgust.On the other hand,the results of Experiment 1 have been applied.The first specific attempt to compare “ disgust generalization ” and fear generalization through two subsequent experiments using assessed specific emotion pictures,and explored the differences in behavior,physiology,and brain response between the two emotion acquisition and generalization processes:The first study passed the picture assessment test of 84 participants,and obtained a fear and disgust emotion picture system with good reliability,and distinguished the specific application direction of animal,scene and object categories.In the second study,32 subjects were compared with the generalization of fear and disgust,and the following results were obtained:(1)during the acquisition and generalization,the subjective expected value of disgust was significantly higher than fear;(2)during the acquisition In the generalization,the response time of fear stimulus is longer than disgust.(3)Under the fear condition,the pupil diameter and the fixation duration of stimulus are larger than disgust.The EEG results of 60 participants in study three revealed the deep differences between the two emotional generalization processes:(1)Firstly,in the early attention-related P2 component,the brain processes of fear was faster and higherautomation because of evolution and more urgent characteristic;(2)secondly,on the P3 component related to cognitive processing,the brain has a greater tendency for deep processing and cognitive resource allocation of disgust to greater avoid to stimuli;(3)finally,on the LPP component represented by late emotion learning and regulation,the learning and generalization of fear reflects a stronger LPP effect.Study 1 serves as the basis for the entire study and provides more specific and directional experimental materials for subsequent research.Study 2 is a preliminary discussion under the theme of two generalized differences in emotions: fear and disgust,and has obtained a series of differences in behavior and physiological response levels.Study 3 has a deeper excavation of the two neurons in the entire acquisition and generalization stage of the midbrain nerve.Mechanism and stimulus processing time course,supplemented and explained the results of the second study,and provided new evidence for the time course of EEG activity corresponding to generalization of fear and disgust generalization.Through all above research,experimental materials and generalization processes of fear and disgust are relatively clearly distinguished,at the same time,reevaluating the fear response which in the previous studies confused with other similar emotional stimuli.These results could have great inspiration in anxiety disorders as well as clinical intervention.