Behaviour research and therapy
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Avoidance is considered a key contributor to the development and maintenance of chronic pain disability, likely through its excessive generalization. This study investigated whether acquired avoidance behavior generalizes to novel but similar movements. Using a robotic arm, participants moved their arm from a starting to a target location via one of three possible movement trajectories. ⋯ We tested generalization to three novel trajectories (G1-3) positioned next to the acquisition trajectories. Whereas acquired fear of movement-related pain and pain-expectancy generalized in the Experimental Group, avoidance behavior did not, suggesting that threat beliefs and high-cost avoidance may not be directly related. The lack of avoidance generalization may be due to a perceived context-switch in the configurations of the acquisition and the generalization phases.