Sensory preconditioning and UCS inflation in human 'fear' conditioning

This study describes a human electrodermal conditioning experiment involving processes of sensory preconditioning and UCS inflation. In stage 1 of the experiment Ss received six presentations of a CS+ paired with an innocuous 65 dB tone (UCS) and six presentations of an unpaired CS-. In stage 2, Ss in the experimental group had the aversiveness of the UCS inflated as the intensity of the 65 dB tone was increased to 115 dB. In stage 3, Ss were given test presentations of CS+ and CS-. A differential CR to CS+ was found only in stage 3 of the experiment and only in Ss who had experienced the UCS inflation procedure. These results suggest that (i) sensory preconditioning had occurred in stage 1 despite the failure to observe a differential CR in this stage, and (ii) the differential CR observed in stage 3 was mediated by an internal representation of the UCS whose aversiveness had been inflated in stage 2. As well as confirming that processes of sensory preconditioning and UCS inflation can be observed in human as well as animal Ss, these findings have important implications for contemporary conditioning models of clinical fears. In particular, they suggest that a contemporary conditioning model of acquired fears is not bound by the need to discover contiguous stimulus-trauma experiences in the histories of clinical phobias since, in humans at least, processes of stimulus association and UCS revaluation appear to be relatively independent.