An evolved module for fear elicitation and fear learning with 4 characteristics is proposed. (a) The fear module is preferentially activated in aversive contexts by stimuli that are fear relevant in an evolutionary perspective. (b) Its activation to such stimuli is automatic. (c) It is relatively impenetrable to cognitive control. (d) It originates in a dedicated neural circuitry, centered on the amygdala. Evidence supporting these propositions is reviewed from conditioning studies, both in humans and in monkeys; illusory correlation studies; studies using unreportable stimuli; and studies from animal neuroscience. The fear module is assumed to mediate an emotional level of fear learning that is relatively independent and dissociable from cognitive learning of stimulus relationships.

Fears, phobias and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning

This theoretical model of emotion is based on research using the startle-probe methodology. It explains inconsistencies in probe studies of attention and fear conditioning and provides a new approach to emotional perception, imagery, and memory. Emotions are organized biphasically, as appetitive or aversive (defensive). Reflexes with the same valence as an ongoing emotional state are augmented; mismatched reflexes are inhibited. Thus, the startle response (an aversive reflex) is enhanced during a fear state and is diminished in a pleasant emotional context. This affect-startle effect is not determined by general arousal, simple attention, or probe modality. The effect is found when affects are prompted by pictures or memory images, changes appropriately with aversive conditioning, and may be dependent on right-hemisphere processing. Implications for clinical, neurophysiological, and basic research in emotion are outlined.

Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex.

This paper is a rough precis of a recent book (GRAY, 1982). It is concerned with the question: what are the brain structures which mediate the psychology as well as the neurology of anxiety? It is clear that, once you start asking questions about the brain, you have to work with animals for reasons that are familiar to everybody. But it is very difficult to start studying emotions in animals, because it is difficult to know what emotions animals experience and whether these are the same as the human emotions. So the first thing one has to look for is a kind of crutch or bridge to get you across from the human domain on one side to the animal domain on the other. Now in the case of anxiety we are quite fortunate in that there are certain drugs which are clinically very effective in controlling anxiety in human subjects. So one can take those drugs and apply them to animals to study their behavioral effects.

The neuropsychology of anxiety

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-642-69631-2_5.pdf

We approach disgust as a food-related emotion and define it as revulsion at the prospect of oral incorporation of offensive objects. These objects have contamination properties; if they even briefly contact an otherwise acceptable food, they tend to render it inedible. Drawing on sources from many cultures, we explore the implications of this perspective on disgust. Some of the issues we consider are the nature of the objects of disgust and why they are virtually all of animal origin, the meaning of oral incorporation, the "belief" that people take on the properties of the foods they eat. and the nature of the contamination response and its relation to the laws of sympathetic magic (similarity and contagion). We consider the ontogeny of disgust, which we believe develops during the first 8 years of life. We explore the idea that feces, the universal disgust object, is also the first, and we examine the mechanisms for the acquisition of disgust. We recommend disgust as an easily studiable emotion, a model for cognitive-affective linkages, and a model for the acquisition of values and culture.

A perspective on disgust.

Objective: To examine the lifetime prevalence of trauma experiences and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).Method:  Questionnaire-assessed PTSD, the type of traumatic event experienced, perceiv ...

Trauma exposure and post‐traumatic stress disorder in the general population

In the present paper, a study of driver errors was replicated in a survey of over 1400 drivers. New error items were added to the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ). An analysis of data based on the original DBQ confirmed the three-factor structure obtained. When new items were included in the analysis a four-factor solution was found to be more appropriate. Two of the four factors correspond to the two factors presented previously, namely violations and dangerous errors, while the third factor, harmless lapses, was split into two new factors, inattention errors and inexperience errors in the present study. Inattention errors were shown to be of special interest as the scores for this factor increased with age, thus indicating errors that might be caused by automatization of driver behaviour.

Dimensions of aberrant driver behaviour.

The premise of equipotentiality, which has been widely adhered to among learning theorists, states that the laws of learning should not vary with the use of particular stimuli, responses, or reinforcements. This premise has recently been challenged by some data originating within the learning tradition itself, for example, studies on the effects of verbal stimuli in eye-lid conditioning. More importantly, however, the premise of equipotentiality is incompatible with data from experiments carried out within a biological-ethological framework. The results of such studies indicate that a given species is prepared to associate certain stimuli, responses, and reinforcers but not others. In an attempt to examine the validity of this premise in human classical conditioning, we investigated the effect of pictures of potentially phobic objects as conditioned stimuli (CSs) for electrodermal responses, since it has been suggested that phobias may be instances of biologically prepared learning. Three experiments are reported, all of them involving a long interstimulus interval differential conditioning paradigm with different pictures as CSs and electric shock as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). In Experiment 1 we established that different pictures are differentially effective as CSs. A groupconditioned to potentially phobic stimuli, snakes or spiders, showed greater resistance to extinction than a group conditioned to fear-irrelevant pictorial stimuli, that is, flowers or mushrooms. A third group conditioned to "representative laboratory stimuli," circles or triangles, fell in between thses two groups. Experuce similar effects to those observed with phobic and fear-irrelevant stimuli in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3 superior resistance to extinction for phobic stimuli was demonstrated when the UCS was an electric shock, but not when it was a tone to which the subject produced reaction times. Thus, the effect appears specific for aversive UCSs, and CS-UCS "belongingness" has been demonstrated. It was concluded that our data do challenge the premise of equipotentiality in human conditioning. There are several learning-theory accounts that could accommodate at least some aspects of the data, but they seem to be best explained in terms of biologically orsiented constructs, such as preparedness.

The premise of equipotentiality in human classical conditioning: Conditioned electrodermal responses to potentially phobic stimuli.

Sixteen years age limit for learner drivers in Sweden--an evaluation of safety effects.

The present study used a mail survey addressed to Swedish drivers aged between 55 and 92 years (n=939) to study the relationship between driving exposure, health, and four types of self-reported aberrant driving behaviour as measured with a Swedish version of the driver behaviour questionnaire.

Age and gender were the most important predictors of the tendency to sometimes avoid driving. However, even after accounting for age and gender, reports of own erroneous driving behaviour because of inattention (e.g., failure to notice a signal) and inexperience errors (viz., handling the car), as well as impaired health, were related to self-imposed driving limitations, whereas the violations and mistakes factors were not. Problems with activities of daily living were only marginally associated with self-imposed driving limitations, mediated through inattention and inexperience errors.

The results support the notion that older drivers adjust their driving in response to their health and to the problems they experience while driving.

Per-Arne Rimmö

Papers

Trauma exposure and post‐traumatic stress disorder in the general population

Dimensions of aberrant driver behaviour.

The premise of equipotentiality in human classical conditioning: Conditioned electrodermal responses to potentially phobic stimuli.

Sixteen years age limit for learner drivers in Sweden--an evaluation of safety effects.

Older drivers' aberrant driving behaviour, impaired activity, and health as reasons for self-imposed driving limitations