Our understanding of the mechanisms guiding adaptive behavior and normal psychological functioning and of how these processes become disrupted in various forms of mental disorders has increased but translating the results of basic psychological research into clinical practice is still in the early stages. One problem for this translation is that the classification of mental disorders is still almost exclusively descriptive. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative aims to redress this by promoting the development of an interdisciplinary science of psychopathology that consists of dimensional constructs integrating models and findings from psychology, biology, and behavioral neuroscience.

This compilation focuses on research in experimental psychopathology that investigates such constructs. It includes theoretical and empirical work on different psychological constructs (such as fear learning and mental imagery) that are relevant for a better understanding of the mechanisms of mental disorders across a large spectrum of categorical diagnoses.