Linking Episodic Memory Control and Spontaneous Recovery of Fear Following Pavlovian Conditioning with Latent Cause Inference

Abstract

Understanding the cognitive underpinnings of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is crucial for developing effective treatments, particularly for core symptoms like intrusive memories and fear relapse. This thesis investigates the link between memory control ability and fear relapse through the lens of latent cause inference, a computational framework for modeling how individuals learn and update internal representations of their environment. In an online study combining a Think/No-Think task, Pavlovian fear conditioning, and psychometric surveys, we tested the hypothesis that impaired inhibitory control of memory leads to the selective maintenance of aversive latent causes, contributing to spontaneous recovery of fear following extinction learning. Contrary to our hypothesis, memory control—indexed by the Think/No-Think task—was not associated with either selective emotional memory enhancement or spontaneous recovery of fear. In contrast, the selective maintenance parameter derived from the computational model —a measure of how strongly aversive latent causes are retained—is positively correlated with spontaneous recovery. Unexpectedly, this parameter is also positively correlated with memory control ability, such that individuals with greater memory control showed more selective maintenance of aversive causes. These findings suggest that inhibitory control of memory, as measured by the TNT task, may not underlie the suppression of emotional memory reactivation and fear relapse in this sample. Additionally, weak top-down inhibitory control of memory does not lead to stronger maintenance of aversive latent causes, as initially predicted. Future research should increase sample sizes, refine behavioral and modeling approaches, and further examine how other cognitive traits - such as anxiety symptoms and perceived thought control - modulate the link between memory control and emotional learning.