For decades already, the human fear conditioning paradigm has been used to study and develop treatments for anxiety disorders. This research is guided by theoretical assumptions that, in some cases indirectly, stem from the tradition of association formation models (e.g., the Rescorla-Wagner model). We argue that one of these assumptions - fear responding as a monotonic function of the associative activation of aversive memory representations - restricts the types of treatment that the research community currently considers. We discuss the importance of this assumption in the context of research on extinction-enhancing and reconsolidation interference techniques. While acknowledging the merit of this research, we argue that unstrapping the straitjacket of this assumption can lead to exploring new directions for utilizing fear conditioning procedures in treatment research. We discuss two determinants of fear responding other than associative memory activation. First, fear responding might also depend on relational information. Second, a recent goal-directed emotion theory suggests that goals might be the primary determinant of the response pattern characterized as fear.

中文翻译：

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解决恐惧：除了联想记忆激活以外，恐惧反应的唯一决定因素。

几十年来，人类恐惧调节范式已用于研究和开发焦虑症的治疗方法。这项研究以理论假设为指导，在某些情况下，这些假设是间接地源自协会形成模型（例如Rescorla-Wagner模型）的传统。我们认为，这些假设之一-恐惧作为厌恶记忆表示的联想激活的单调函数作出响应-限制了研究团体当前考虑的治疗类型。我们在消光增强和重新整合干扰技术研究的背景下讨论了这一假设的重要性。在承认这项研究的优点的同时，我们认为，解开这一假设的束缚可以导致探索在治疗研究中利用恐惧调节程序的新方向。我们讨论了恐惧的两个决定因素，除了联想记忆激活。首先，恐惧反应也可能取决于关系信息。其次，最近的一种以目标为导向的情绪理论表明，目标可能是表征为恐惧的反应模式的主要决定因素。