Contingency awareness and fear inhibition in a human fear-potentiated startle paradigm

Fear-potentiated startle is defined as an increase in the magnitude of the startle reflex in the presence of a stimulus that was previously paired with an aversive event. It has been proposed that a subject's awareness of the contingencies in the experiment may affect fear-potentiated startle. The authors adapted a conditional discrimination procedure (AX+/BX-), previously validated in animals, to a human fear-potentiated startle paradigm in 50 healthy volunteers. This paradigm allows for an assessment of fear-potentiated startle during threat conditions as well as inhibition of fear-potentiated startle during safety conditions. A response keypad was used to assess contingency awareness on a trial-by-trial basis. Both aware and unaware subjects showed fear-potentiated startle. However, awareness was related to stimulus discrimination and fear inhibition.