Cardiac response in aversive and appetitive olfactory conditioning: Evidence for a valence‐independent CS‐elicited bradycardia

While the examination of conditioned cardiac responses is well established in human fear conditioning research, comparable studies using less‐aversive or rather appetitive unconditioned stimuli (UCS) are sparse and results are mixed. Therefore, the aim of this study was a systematic analysis of cardiac reactions in aversive and appetitive conditioning. Olfactory stimuli were used as unconditioned stimuli as they are suitable reinforcers in both an aversive and an appetitive conditioning offering the opportunity for a comparison between conditioned responses. In total, n = 86 participants took part in both an aversive and an appetitive differential conditioning task with a counterbalanced order across participants. Aversive or appetitive odors, respectively, served as UCS and neutral geometrical figures as CS. Subjective ratings, skin conductance response (SCRs), and evoked cardiac reactions were analyzed and compared between tasks. Conditioned responses in subjective ratings could be observed in both aversive conditioning and appetitive conditioning, while SCRs discriminated between CS+ and CS− in aversive conditioning only. Regarding conditioned cardiac responses, the deceleration for the CS+ was longer than for the CS− in both tasks. In addition, a higher deceleration magnitude and a shorter acceleration for the CS+ as compared to the CS− were found in aversive but not in appetitive conditioning. There were medium‐size correlations between aversive and appetitive CRs for subjective ratings and none for physiological responses. The results suggest similarities between cardiac response patterns in aversive and appetitive conditioning, which implies that bradycardia in conditioning might not be fear‐specific but presents a valence‐independent CS‐elicited bradycardia. Cardiac slowing in response to fear conditioned stimuli is a well‐known phenomenon (i.e., “fear bradycardia”). Here, conditioned stimuli in aversive and appetitive olfactory conditioning evoked slowing of heart rate, suggesting that conditioned bradycardia may be less specific to fear than previously thought.