Suppression of Fear-Conditioned Stimuli

This study demonstrates that even objects generating acute fear through shock conditioning can be attentionally suppressed. Participants searched for shapes while a color singleton distractor was presented. In a preconditioning phase, participants learned to suppress a color singleton distractor frequently appearing in a specific location. Following fear conditioning, suppression remained in place even for those color distractors that were now associated with receiving an electric shock. This finding provides evidence that people can learn to suppress stimuli they fear. The current results are important as they challenge prevailing theories that suggest attentional capture by fearful stimuli is inflexible and driven by innate, bottom-up processes. Moreover, the finding that fearful stimuli can be suppressed opens up potential avenues for developing behavior modification techniques aimed at counteracting attentional biases toward fearful stimuli.