This study examined developmental differences in contextual and perceptual generalization of fear and avoidance learning. Future research should conscientiously look at these data more closely and investigate paradigms that work independent of age and diagnostic status. Thus, interpretability and generalizability of those paradigms are limited when non-completers are not considered. There seem to be distinct characteristics potentially predicting dropout from fear conditioning paradigms. Logistic regressions revealed that younger age and a present anxiety disorder predicted dropout. The most common reason to discontinue was being afraid of the US (59.1%) followed by the startle probe being too loud (15.2%). The sample included 230 children and adolescents with a current primary anxiety disorder (separation anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and specific phobia) and 53 non-anxious controls. This study systematically investigated data of 283 children and adolescents between 8 and 17 years ( M = 11.10, SD = 2.14) undergoing a differential fear conditioning paradigm using a female scream as unconditioned stimulus (US). Most of these studies exclusively focus on data of completers while dropout rates, reasons for dropout, and specific characteristics of non-completers are underreported. The number of studies on fear conditioning in children and adolescents has increased in recent years. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed. Finally, fear learning also related to contingency awareness only children who correctly identified the CS+ demonstrated fear-potentiated startle to the CS+. In addition, older children exhibited the typical pattern of generalization observed in adults, whereas younger children did not. Older children demonstrated greater fear learning (i.e., larger startle during CS+ than CS-) than younger children. Patterns of fear learning and generalization were qualified by child age. The eye-blink startle reflex was utilized to measure defensive responding. The second phase of the study also included a generalization stimulus (GS): a 50% blend of the CSĀ± faces. In this task, the conditioned stimuli (CS+/CS-) are two neutral female faces, and the unconditioned stimulus is a fearful, screaming face. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 47:94-102]. The current study examined developmental changes in fear learning and generalization in 40 healthy 8-13 year-olds using an aversive conditioning paradigm adapted from Lau et al.
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