Reducing Generalization of Conditioned Fear: Beneficial Impact of Fear Relevance and Feedback in Discrimination Training

Anxiety patients over-generalize fear, possibly because of an incapacity to discriminate threat and safety signals. Discrimination trainings are promising approaches for reducing such fear over-generalization. Here we investigated the efficacy of a fear-relevant vs. a fear-irrelevant discrimination training on fear generalization and whether the effects are increased with feedback during training. Eighty participants underwent two fear acquisition blocks, during which one face (conditioned stimulus, CS+), but not another face (CS−), was associated with a female scream (unconditioned stimulus, US). During two generalization blocks, both CSs plus four morphs (generalization stimuli, GS1–GS4) were presented. Between these generalization blocks, half of the participants underwent a fear-relevant discrimination training (discrimination between CS+ and the other faces) with or without feedback and the other half a fear-irrelevant discrimination training (discrimination between the width of lines) with or without feedback. US expectancy, arousal, valence ratings, and skin conductance responses (SCR) indicated successful fear acquisition. Importantly, fear-relevant vs. fear-irrelevant discrimination trainings and feedback vs. no feedback reduced generalization as reflected in US expectancy ratings independently from one another. No effects of training condition were found for arousal and valence ratings or SCR. In summary, this is a first indication that fear-relevant discrimination training and feedback can improve the discrimination between threat and safety signals in healthy individuals, at least for learning-related evaluations, but not evaluations of valence or (physiological) arousal.

Problems encountered by the MNLF Combatants of Basilan and Zamboanga: Prior, During and After Integration

This study examined the Integration Program of the Philippine Government for former MNLF members into the AFP, particularly in Basilan and Zamboanga. Its aim is to bring former fighters to the mainstream of society and to promote peace and order in Mindanao. The objectives are to determine how the GRP and the MNLF implement provisions of the JPA and examine the awareness of the recruits; and to find out problems encountered by the integrees before, during and after their integration to the AFP. Descriptive method was used through FGD, KI interviews, and passive observation. Questionnaire checklist was utilized for sociodemographic profile. The sixty five respondents answered that the greatest problems prior, during and after integration were the following: enforced integration, unfair distribution of quota, no clearcut qualifications and lack of proper dissemination of information; no assistance to education and fixed monthly salary; unclear instructions, bureaucratic system; complicated mental training, discrimination, abuse of authority by the trainers; not permitted to go home, and low quality firearms; fake MNLF fighters, bribery; no respect for religious beliefs and discrimination from the PA; delay of salary, unfair release of coupon and mess, no scholarship for EM and no implementation of livelihood programs. Majority of these problems are structural in nature with primary attitudinal problems and it is to understand that with these problems there is a great need to rediscover the values of cultural solidarity and to reemphasize the positive and relevant roles that each should take to achieve a lasting and relevant national commitment for peace. Keywords - Peace and Order, Moro National Liberation Front, Armed Forces of the Philippines , Government of the Republic of the Philippines, Descriptive Method, Basilan and Zamboanga, Philippines,

Representation of Sound Categories in Auditory Cortical Maps

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the representation of sound categories in human auditory cortex. Experiment 1 investigated the representation of prototypical (good) and nonprototypical (bad) examples of a vowel sound. Listening to prototypical examples of a vowel resulted in less auditory cortical activation than did listening to nonprototypical examples. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the effects of categorization training and discrimination training with novel nonspeech sounds on auditory cortical representations. The 2 training tasks were shown to have opposite effects on the auditory cortical representation of sounds experienced during training: Discrimination training led to an increase in the amount of activation caused by the training stimuli, whereas categorization training led to decreased activation. These results indicate that the brain efficiently shifts neural resources away from regions of acoustic space where discrimination between sounds is not behaviorally important (e.g., near the center of a sound category) and toward regions where accurate discrimination is needed. The results also provide a straightforward neural account of learned aspects of perceptual distortion near sound categories: Sounds from the center of a category are more difficult to discriminate from each other than sounds near category boundaries because they are represented by fewer cells in the auditory cortical areas.