ABA, ABC, and AAB renewal effects and individual differences of learning on fear conditioning using social stimuli

We examined whether ABA, ABC, and AAB renewal effects could be observed using fear conditioning with social stimuli as both conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) to investigate the possibility of relapse following exposure interventions for social anxiety in a laboratory setting. Sixty-four participants were randomly allocated to four groups (AAA, ABA, ABC, and AAB). They received nine pairings with a neutral face (CS) and aggressive facial expressions and insults (US) during the acquisition phase, and then received 18 pairings with the same CS and a neutral comment in the extinction phase. Following the extinction, the testing phase (three trials) was conducted. The background colors presented in each phase were manipulated to serve as the contextual stimuli. ANOVA showed the occurrence of the three types of renewals, but there were no consistent results showing differences between the renewals. Bayesian modeling demonstrated that there are some relationships between each parameter in the learning curves and social anxiety. The participants were non-clinical populations; therefore, it remains unclear whether the findings can be generalized to clinical populations. The results suggest that relapse following exposure therapy is related to a contextual change from the therapeutic environment and that individual differences in learning are related to social anxiety symptoms.