Fig. 2: Robust influence of task variables on brain activation during fear conditioning.

Maps show the influence of pre-task instructions about CS-US contingency (a), type of US (b), number of CS used in paradigm (i.e. multiple CS+ or CS- or single CS+ or CS-) (c), pairing rate (d), and potential US confounding in CS + > CS- contrast (e) on mean activation (left; mega-analysis linear mixed-effects models) and relation to predicted activation (right; normative model structure coefficients). For the mega-analysis, warm colours indicate positive correlations (i.e., higher variable values associated with greater activation), while cool colours indicate negative correlations (i.e., higher variable values associated with reduced activation). For normative modeling, structure coefficient maps show the correlation coefficients (rho) thresholded by their respective coefficients of determination (rho2  >  0.3) of selected task variables. This can be interpreted as showing how predicted activation to the CS + > CS- contrast relates to the task variables included in the building of the normative models. Positive correlations (warm colours) indicate greater activation for higher values of the input variable and negative correlations (cool colours) greater activation for lower values of the input variable (note that some variables are dummy coded, e.g., pre-task instructions, type of US). CS Conditioned Stimulus; US Unconditioned Stimulus. For Pairing Rate (RR) in linear mixed-effects models, the figure shows significant results in the ANOVA comparing four categories (RR30, RR50, RR62, RR100). For the results of post-hoc tests, see Supplementary Figs. S6 and S7. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.