Background and objectives

It is important to be able to learn which stimuli in our surroundings predict aversive outcomes. To maintain emotional well-being, it is similarly important to be able to learn which stimuli predict safety. The ability to discriminate between stimuli that predict danger and safety has been suggested to not only have an emotional component, but also a cognitive one. One such candidate mechanism is mnemonic discrimination (MD), the ability to differentiate between two memories that are similar but not identical. In the present study, we wanted to examine if MD performance helps to explain inter-individual differences in the ability to acquire a differentiated fear response during fear conditioning.

Methods

Participants performed a task assessing MD ability, and then underwent a fear conditioning procedure. Fear responses were measured using skin conductance responses (SCRs).

Results

Results revealed no support for MD ability being associated with to which degree a differentiated fear response was acquired, or with the time needed to acquire such a response.

Limitations

Our only outcome measurement was SCRs. Future studies need to include fear ratings, expectancy ratings and neural responses. Future studies also need to examine this using a stimulus material where the conditioned stimulus and the safety stimulus are more difficult to distinguish from each other.

Conclusions

If MD ability has a role in inhibiting overgeneralization of fear learning, this does not seem to be driven by MD already during the initial learning.

中文翻译：

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记忆辨别能力与差异恐惧学习的关系

背景和目标

重要的是能够了解我们周围环境中的哪些刺激可以预测令人厌恶的结果。为了保持情绪健康，同样重要的是能够了解哪些刺激可以预测安全。已经提出区分预测危险和安全的刺激的能力不仅具有情感成分，而且还具有认知成分。一种这样的候选机制是助记符辨别 (MD)，即区分两个相似但不相同的记忆的能力。在本研究中，我们想检查 MD 表现是否有助于解释在恐惧条件反射期间获得差异化恐惧反应的能力的个体间差异。

方法

参与者执行了一项评估 MD 能力的任务，然后进行了恐惧调节程序。使用皮肤电导反应 (SCR) 测量恐惧反应。

结果

结果显示，不支持 MD 能力与获得差异恐惧反应的程度有关，或者与获得这种反应所需的时间有关。

限制

我们唯一的结果测量是 SCR。未来的研究需要包括恐惧等级、期望等级和神经反应。未来的研究还需要使用刺激材料来检验这一点，其中条件刺激和安全刺激更难以相互区分。

结论

如果 MD 能力在抑制恐惧学习的过度泛化方面发挥作用，那么在最初的学习过程中，这似乎并不是由 MD 驱动的。