Preparedness and electrodermal fear-conditioning: ontogenetic vs phylogenetic explanations

In a review of existing theories of learning, Seligman (Psychol. Rev. 77, 406-418, 1970) suggested that humans should have an evolutionary derived preparedness to associate fear-relevant (e.g. snakes) events with aversive reinforcers. The preparedness hypothesis has been extensively tested by Ohman and his colleagues. One argument against a non-preparedness explanation for the Ohman findings has been that culturally aversive stimuli, like pictures of guns have not shown the same resistance towards extinction as pictures of snakes. However, the effect of pointing a gun directly towards the S vs pointing it to the side has not been tested. Therefore both slides of guns and snakes, directed both towards and aside from the subject, were used as conditioned stimuli (CSs) in the present study. A second question that has been discussed in the preparedness-literature is the quality of the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), i.e. if only shock can act as UCS for prepared CSs. Thus, both shock and noise UCSs were used in the present study. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded as dependent measures. The results showed conditioned acquisition, i.e. larger SCRs to CS+ than to CS-, in all groups except for the shock and noise UCS groups with the gun pointing aside as CS+ (where actually larger responses were observed to the CS-, i.e. the gun pointing towards). The extinction data showed significantly larger SCRs to CS+ than to CS- for both snakes and guns directed towards the S. Strongest resistance to extinction was observed for the group with the gun pointed towards as CS+ and with noise as UCS. The gun with noise as UCS pointed towards the S was not different from the snake with shock as UCS. Taken together, the results have shown three things; (a) directing a fear-relevant CS towards the S was a potent manipulation, and especially directing a gun with noise as UCS; (b) shock was overall not superior to noise as UCS, and especially not for snake CSs; (c) a weak form of unique belongingness was demonstrated.