Conditioned generalisation in generalised anxiety disorder: the role of concurrent perceptual and conceptual cues

Abstract

Previous research in extinction indicates no difference in US expectancies for aversive and non-aversive unconditioned stimuli (USs). In this study, we bridged these topics by examining how concurrent perceptual and conceptual cues influence conditioned generalisation of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) patients by using non-aversive USs. The study included two consecutive phases: acquisition and generalisation. In the acquisition phase, we used blue and purple images as the perceptually conditioned stimuli, images of animals and household items as the conceptually conditioned stimuli, and non-aversive images as unconditioned stimuli (US). In the generalisation phase, we used images containing both conceptual and perceptual cues (e.g. blue animals) as the generalisation stimuli. Participants rated the US expectancy for all images. We found that compared with the control group, the patients exhibited generalisation in response to stimuli that included conditional conceptual cues. These results reveal novel evidence of generalisation in GAD and may have implications for considering the concept-based information in extinction treatment.

Keywords: General anxiety disorder; conceptual cue; generalisation; perceptual cue.