Psychology Fear & Anxiety
PSY 339 Lecture
Fear Learning in Humans- Learning to be Afraid
Learning- a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience this occurs through ASSOCIATION – PAVLOV
Classical Conditioning a previously neutral stimulus (CS)-red square- gets paired with the unconditioned stimulus (US) – lightening bolt- RESULT- CS elicits fear (CR)
How do we measure fear in Pavlovian Conditioning? Freezing, Vocalization (ultrasonic for rodents), Increase in acoustic startle response, skin conductance- non- specific arousal
Differential Conditioning- ITI- intertrial interval startles for in-between startle probes (when nothing is on the screen)
Startle indexes magnitude of response of fear- ITI lowest, CS- low, CS+ highest
Amygdala (fear conditioning/shock sensitization CS+ startle reflex) nucleus reticularis pontis caudalis (RPC) spinal & facial motoneurons (startle reflex), cochlear root neurons (abrupt noise-probe)
Second-order conditioning- things which predict bad things to come (blue to red square, yellow to red light) CR magnitude is lower than first order conditioning (smaller reaction to blue square)
What determines CS-US strength- not just association- but PREDICTABILITY of US, so unpaired US presentations will actually REDUCE CS-US strength, but unpaired is scarier- unpredictable US presentationsreduce conditioned fear, but increases anxiety (ITI goes up) CONTEXT conditioning
Anxiety down for paired, up for unpaired
Grillon- blue light & shock in bank/casino/restaurant, no shock/predictable/unpredictable
Where blue light always predicts shock CS+ is largest (present startle probes during CS+ for cued fear)
CS+ and ITI don’t differ too much, anxiety is bigger in unpredictable roompresent startle probes during the ITI
CS- is a safety signal
Learning fear through Instruction & Observation- acquires fear easily via learning through others w/ Phobias, no personal experience, but mostly through observational learning develops fear
Problem
Fear Learning in Humans- Learning to be Afraid
Learning- a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience this occurs through ASSOCIATION – PAVLOV
Classical Conditioning a previously neutral stimulus (CS)-red square- gets paired with the unconditioned stimulus (US) – lightening bolt- RESULT- CS elicits fear (CR)
How do we measure fear in Pavlovian Conditioning? Freezing, Vocalization (ultrasonic for rodents), Increase in acoustic startle response, skin conductance- non- specific arousal
Differential Conditioning- ITI- intertrial interval startles for in-between startle probes (when nothing is on the screen)
Startle indexes magnitude of response of fear- ITI lowest, CS- low, CS+ highest
Amygdala (fear conditioning/shock sensitization CS+ startle reflex) nucleus reticularis pontis caudalis (RPC) spinal & facial motoneurons (startle reflex), cochlear root neurons (abrupt noise-probe)
Second-order conditioning- things which predict bad things to come (blue to red square, yellow to red light) CR magnitude is lower than first order conditioning (smaller reaction to blue square)
What determines CS-US strength- not just association- but PREDICTABILITY of US, so unpaired US presentations will actually REDUCE CS-US strength, but unpaired is scarier- unpredictable US presentationsreduce conditioned fear, but increases anxiety (ITI goes up) CONTEXT conditioning
Anxiety down for paired, up for unpaired
Grillon- blue light & shock in bank/casino/restaurant, no shock/predictable/unpredictable
Where blue light always predicts shock CS+ is largest (present startle probes during CS+ for cued fear)
CS+ and ITI don’t differ too much, anxiety is bigger in unpredictable roompresent startle probes during the ITI
CS- is a safety signal
Learning fear through Instruction & Observation- acquires fear easily via learning through others w/ Phobias, no personal experience, but mostly through observational learning develops fear
Problem