This episode covers a recent meta analysis looking at differences in brain patterns when an expectancy violation, thought to be important in effectiveness of exposure based therapies (see episodes 12, 15, and 31), occurs passively versus actively. Active expectancy violation is thought to be more likely to bring about a change in behavior. This research looked to see if there was a difference that could be identified in activated brain areas between the 2 conditions.

Learning about Expectation Violation from Prediction Error Paradigms – A Meta-Analysis on Brain Processes Following a Prediction Error.
D’Astolfo L and Rief W.
Front Psychol. 2017; 8: 1253. Published online 2017 Jul 28. doi: [10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01253]

Due to copyright laws, unless the article is open source we cannot legally post the PDF on the website for the world to download at will. That said, if you are having difficulty obtaining an article, contact us.

Music by Kevin MacLeod - incompetech.com:
Intro - Brandenburg No4 and Meatball Parade
Close - Meatball Parade