Associative learning is often considered to require the physical presence of stimuli in the
environment in order for them to be linked. This, however, is not a necessary condition for …

Avoidance is typically adaptive given it prevents threat. However, avoidance becomes
maladaptive when it is executed out of proportion of threat (ie, excessive or insufficient …

Avoiding stimuli that were previously associated with threat is essential for adaptive
functioning, but excessive avoidance that persists in the absence of threat can turn …

Despite it being widely acknowledged that the most important function of memory is to
facilitate the prediction of significant events in a complex world, no studies to date have …

Excessive generalization of safety behavior to innocuous stimuli that resemble a feared
stimulus is oftentimes pathological especially with inflicted impairments. Safety behavior is …

Adaptation to our social environment requires learning how to avoid potentially harmful
situations, such as encounters with aggressive individuals. Threatening facial expressions …

Emotion induction in psychological and neuroscientific research has been mostly done by
presenting participants with picture or film material. However, it is debatable whether this …

In the interplay of fear and avoidance, not only imminent threat signals that directly predict
potential threat evoke avoidance, but also distal threat signals that predict these imminent …

Whereas many studies have investigated generalization of learned threat across semantic
dimensions, little attention has been given to the possibility that Pavlovian threat responses …

The capacity to remember previous experiences has been shaped by evolution to prioritize
information that is relevant to survival (Klein et al., 2002; Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008). This is …