The Interplay of Contextual Representations Dynamically Shapes Human Defensive Responses
Abstract
Flexibly adapting behavior to complex environments depends on the ability to process and integrate contextual information into a coherent representation. Animal research highlights the interplay between elemental and conjunctive contextual representations in guiding behavior. Here, we examined how these two forms of encoding interact to influence human defensive responses using a virtual reality context-dependent fear conditioning paradigm. The virtual environment consisted of three distinctly furnished offices, each containing the same two lamps. First, participants (N = 54) explored all offices (context encoding). Then, they repeatedly visited two of them and in each office, one lamp (e.g., yellow) predicted an aversive electric stimulation, whereas the other lamp (e.g., blue) signaled safety. Critically, contingencies were reversed across contexts (context-dependent acquisition). In the final phase (behavioral test), participants freely re-explored the offices. Subjective ratings, autonomic responses, proxemic indices, and gaze behavior were recorded. Ratings, autonomic responses, and gaze behavior showed context-dependent threat–safety discrimination, indicating a dominant role of conjunctive representations. Reduced discrimination in the context in which cue contingencies were reversed revealed a contribution of elemental representations. Interestingly, despite accurate contingency knowledge, participants adopted a “better safe than sorry” strategy during the behavioral test, avoiding both lamps across contexts, suggesting a stronger influence of elemental encoding on spontaneous defensive behavior under uncertainty. These findings demonstrate that multiple forms of contextual representation mutually interact across defensive domains, highlighting the complexity of human threat processing. This framework may provide new insights into the etiology and maintenance of maladaptive defensive responses in anxiety-related psychopathology.
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BibTeX
@misc{tortora2026interplay,
title = {{The Interplay of Contextual Representations Dynamically Shapes Human Defensive Responses}},
author = {Francesco Tortora and Daniel Gromer and Mario Reutter-Dieker and Sabrina Gado and Marta Andreatta and Matthias Gamer},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/bc4ta_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bc4ta_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Interplay of Contextual Representations Dynamically Shapes Human Defensive Responses
AU - Francesco Tortora
AU - Daniel Gromer
AU - Mario Reutter-Dieker
AU - Sabrina Gado
AU - Marta Andreatta
AU - Matthias Gamer
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/13
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/bc4ta_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bc4ta_v1/
AB - Flexibly adapting behavior to complex environments depends on the ability to process and integrate contextual information into a coherent representation. Animal research highlights the interplay between elemental and conjunctive contextual representations in guiding behavior. Here, we examined how these two forms of encoding interact to influence human defensive responses using a virtual reality context-dependent fear conditioning paradigm. The virtual environment consisted of three distinctly furnished offices, each containing the same two lamps. First, participants (N = 54) explored all offices (context encoding). Then, they repeatedly visited two of them and in each office, one lamp (e.g., yellow) predicted an aversive electric stimulation, whereas the other lamp (e.g., blue) signaled safety. Critically, contingencies were reversed across contexts (context-dependent acquisition). In the final phase (behavioral test), participants freely re-explored the offices. Subjective ratings, autonomic responses, proxemic indices, and gaze behavior were recorded. Ratings, autonomic responses, and gaze behavior showed context-dependent threat–safety discrimination, indicating a dominant role of conjunctive representations. Reduced discrimination in the context in which cue contingencies were reversed revealed a contribution of elemental representations. Interestingly, despite accurate contingency knowledge, participants adopted a “better safe than sorry” strategy during the behavioral test, avoiding both lamps across contexts, suggesting a stronger influence of elemental encoding on spontaneous defensive behavior under uncertainty. These findings demonstrate that multiple forms of contextual representation mutually interact across defensive domains, highlighting the complexity of human threat processing. This framework may provide new insights into the etiology and maintenance of maladaptive defensive responses in anxiety-related psychopathology.
ER -