TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schiele, Miriam A.
A1  - Reinhard, Julia
A1  - Reif, Andreas
A1  - Domschke, Katharina
A1  - Romano, Marcel
A1  - Deckert, Jürgen
A1  - Pauli, Paul
T1  - Developmental aspects of fear: comparing the acquisition and generalization of conditioned fear in children and adults
T2  - Developmental psychology
N2  - Most research on human fear conditioning and its generalization has focused on adults whereas only little is known about these processes in children. Direct comparisons between child and adult populations are needed to determine developmental risk markers of fear and anxiety. We compared 267 children and 285 adults in a differential fear conditioning paradigm and generalization test. Skin conductance responses (SCR) and ratings of valence and arousal were obtained to indicate fear learning. Both groups displayed robust and similar differential conditioning on subjective and physiological levels. However, children showed heightened fear generalization compared to adults as indexed by higher arousal ratings and SCR to the generalization stimuli. Results indicate overgeneralization of conditioned fear as a developmental correlate of fear learning. The developmental change from a shallow to a steeper generalization gradient is likely related to the maturation of brain structures that modulate efficient discrimination between danger and (ambiguous) safety cues.
KW  - fear conditioning
KW  - fear generalization
KW  - development
KW  - skin conductance
KW  - maturation
Y1  - 2016
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/42251
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-422511
SN  - 1939-0599
SN  - 0012-1649
N1  - This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
VL  - 58
SP  - 471
EP  - 481
PB  - Arlington, Va. [u.a.]
CY  - American Psychological Association
ER  -