Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Abstract: A critical finding supporting the fear module theory (Öhman & Mineka, 2001) is the result according to which, during fear conditioning, resistance to extinction of enhanced SCRs is found towards pictures of evolutionary fear-relevant stimuli, but not towards pictures of fear-irrelevant stimuli (Öhman, Eriksson & Olofsson, 1975). The aim of the current research project was to test an alternative hypothesis, namely that the resistance to extinction is not specific to evolutionary fear-relevant stimuli but to all stimuli that are appraised as self-relevant to the organism. Therefore, in the current experiment, we established a positive conditioning procedure, and assessed the resistance to extinction for positive relevant stimuli and compared it to the positive conditioning of neutral stimuli. Our results showed a physiological response to an unconditioned positive stimulus and a change in arousal before and after the conditioning for the two conditioned stimuli. These findings are discussed in relation to emotional learning for relevant stimuli. Moreover, possible future investigations are suggested.
Author: Géraldine Coppin
Institution: University of Geneva
Language: English
Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Université de Genève
OpenAlex ID: W204703280