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Phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and related disorders involve a learned association of a previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS), such as a place, with a fear-evoking unconditioned stimulus, such as a traumatic event. Exposure therapy attempts to extinguish this conditioning by presenting the CS in the absence of the fear-evoking danger signal. These researchers examined whether pairing the CS with a novel neutral stimulus (novelty-facilitated extinction [NFE]) rather than no stimulus might facilitate extinction of learned fear in 46 normal people during a 2-day protocol.
On the first day, participants repeatedly viewed pictures of two angry faces; a shock to the wrist followed one of the faces (the CS). Later that day, …