Smith Stephen D, Most Steven B, Newsome Leslie A, Zald David H
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
Emotion. 2006 Aug;6(3):523-7. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.6.3.523.
The current study examines whether aversively conditioned stimuli can modulate attention to such a degree that they impair the perception of subsequently presented nonemotional targets. In the initial phase of this study, participants viewed 3 categories of photographs, 1 of which was paired with an aversive noise. Following conditioning, participants searched for a target embedded within a series of 17 rapidly presented images on each trial. Critically, a conditioned or unconditioned item from the initial phase appeared 200 ms or 800 ms before the target. At 200-ms lags but not 800-ms lags, the conditioned images impaired target detection relative to the other distractors. Thus, temporary visual deficits can be induced by otherwise neutral distractors whose aversive associations have only recently been learned.
当前的研究考察了厌恶性条件刺激是否能够在一定程度上调节注意力，以至于损害对随后呈现的非情感目标的感知。在本研究的初始阶段，参与者观看了3类照片，其中1类照片与厌恶性噪音配对。条件作用后，参与者在每次试验中从一系列快速呈现的17张图像中搜索一个嵌入的目标。关键的是，初始阶段的一个条件化或非条件化项目会在目标出现前200毫秒或800毫秒出现。在200毫秒的延迟条件下而非800毫秒的延迟条件下，与其他干扰物相比，条件化图像损害了目标检测。因此，原本中性的干扰物（其厌恶性关联是最近才习得的）能够诱发暂时的视觉缺陷。
