Reinstatement of fear is a proposed mechanism for return of fear following exposure therapy. A standard reinstatement procedure in the laboratory involves a conditional stimulus (CS) paired with an unconditional stimulus (US) during acquisition (i.e., CS+), and a CS paired without an US (CS-) during acquisition. In extinction the CS + and CS- are presented alone, then the US is presented without the CS in reinstatement, and followed by test trials of the CS. The current study examined whether reinstatement of fear can be triggered by a CS that was previously paired with the US (i.e., unextinguished CS) and reduced by extinction to the CSextinguished and CSunextinguished but not the CS- in a sample of first year psychology students (expectancy data N = 93; heart rate data N = 73). A differential aversive conditioning procedure presented within a virtual reality environment was used to examine reinstatement of the US expectancy and conditioned heart rate responses. As predicted, presentation of an unextinguished CS reinstated fear of a second previously extinguished CS. Moreover, conducting extinction with multiple stimuli attenuated this reinstatement of fear as indexed by self-report and heart rate measures. The present results suggest that therapy should include exposure to multiple stimuli to reduce the likelihood of reinstatement of fear.

恢复恐惧是暴露疗法后恢复恐惧的一种建议机制。实验室中的标准恢复程序包括在采集过程中将条件刺激（CS）与无条件刺激（US）配对（即CS +），以及在采集过程中将CS与无US配对（CS-）。在灭绝中，仅提供CS +和CS-，然后提供未恢复CS的美国，然后进行CS的测试。当前的研究调查了在初一心理学学生样本中，先前与美国结成对的CS（即未熄灭的CS）是否可以触发恐惧，并因CS熄灭和CSunext熄灭而灭绝而降低了恐惧（预期数据N = 93；心率数据N= 73）。在虚拟现实环境中提出的一种差异性厌恶调节程序被用于检查美国期望值的恢复和调节后的心率响应。如预期的那样，未消灭的CS的呈现恢复了对第二个先前消灭的CS的恐惧。此外，通过自我报告和心率测量指标可知，对多种刺激进行灭绝会减弱这种恐惧的恢复。目前的结果表明，治疗应包括暴露于多种刺激，以减少恢复恐惧的可能性。