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Contributed Talk Session: Thursday, August 6, 1:45 – 2:45 pm, Skirball Theater
Poster D in Poster Session D: Wednesday, August 5, 2:00 – 3:45 pm, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Distinct Computational Pathways to Persistent Fear Across Development

Camilla van Geen¹, Noam Goldway², Gili Karni¹, Isabel M Berwian¹, Catherine Hartley³, Yael Niv¹; ¹Princeton University, ²King's College London, ³New York University

Presenter: Camilla van Geen

Exposure-based therapies often fail to produce lasting fear extinction. Computational models of latent cause inference highlight that persistent fear may arise when inferred aversive causes are selectively maintained in memory. Here, we extend this framework to include threat generalization as another pathway to sustained fear, and test whether the balance between selective maintenance and generalization shifts across development. Participants (N=502) aged 8–25 completed an online fear conditioning and extinction task, followed by a test of spontaneous recovery. Participants learned to associate an image (CS⁺) with an aversive scream, while a second image (CS⁻) was never followed by the scream. Compared to adolescents and adults, a larger proportion of children showed fear generalization across the two CSs, and a smaller proportion exhibited CS⁺⁻selective fear at test (both p_FDR = 0.012). Our model captured this developmental shift as an age-related decrease in a generalization parameter that spreads learning across multiple latent causes (i.e., associations; p = 0.037), alongside faster decay of existing memory traces (p < 0.001). These findings suggest a developmental transition from diffuse threat generalization to more selective maintenance of aversive memories.

Topic Area: Development, Individual Differences & Clinical Populations