Enhanced fear responses to cues, which were not associated with the threat but share perceptual characteristics with the threat signal, indicate generalization of conditioned fear. Here, we investigated for the first time generalization processes in contextual fear conditioning. Thirty-two @entity1 were guided through two virtual offices (acquisition phases). Mildly painful @entity1457 (unconditioned stimulus, US) were unpredictably delivered in one office ( @entity148 context, @entity3525 +), but never in the other office (safety context, @entity3525 -). During the generalization test, @entity1 were guided through @entity3525 +, @entity3525 -, and the generalization context (G- @entity3525 ), which contained features of both the @entity3525 + and the @entity3525 -, but no US was delivered. We found successful contextual fear conditioning (i.e., the @entity3525 + compared to the @entity3525 - elicited potentiated @entity427 responses and was rated with more negative valence, higher arousal and higher @entity148 ). Importantly, implicit and explicit responses dissociated in the generalization test. Thus, @entity1 rated the G- @entity3525 as more arousing and anxiogenic than the @entity3525 - indicating @entity148 , but they showed enhanced @entity427 responses to the @entity3525 + only, while the G- @entity3525 and the @entity3525 - did not differ. In summary, healthy @entity1 on an explicit level responded to the generalization context like to the @entity148 context, but on an implicit level responded to the generalization context like to the safety context. Possibly, this dissociation suggests distinct and specific generalization processes underlying contextual fear.

Generalization of Contextual Fear in XXXX .

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['participants'] @entity3525 :: ('CHEBI:36467', 'Chemical') :: ['CTX'] @entity1457 :: ('MESH:D012769', 'Disease') :: ['electric shocks'] @entity148 :: ('MESH:D001008', 'Disease') :: ['anxiety generalization', 'anxiety'] @entity427 :: ('MESH:D012021', 'Disease') :: ['startle']
@entity1 :: (9606,Species) :: ['Humans']
