Roelofs Karin, Bakvis Patricia, Hermans Erno J, van Pelt Johannes, van Honk Jack
Section Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Leiden, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands.
Biol Psychol. 2007 Apr;75(1):1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.09.002. Epub 2006 Oct 6.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of social stress and stress-induced cortisol on the preconscious selective attention to social threat. Twenty healthy participants were administered a masked emotional Stroop task (comparing color-naming latencies for angry, neutral and happy faces) in conditions of rest and social stress. Stress was induced by means of the Trier social stress test. Based on the stress-induced increase in cortisol levels, participants were allocated post hoc (median-split) to a high and low responders group. In contrast to low responders, high responders showed a negative or avoidant attentional bias to threat (i.e. shorter latencies for angry than neutral faces) in the rest condition. Most importantly, although low responders became avoidant, the high responders became vigilant to the angry faces after stress induction. There were no such effects for happy faces. Our findings are in line with previous studies in both animals and humans, that associate high glucocorticoid stress-responsiveness with diminished avoidance and prolonged freezing reactions during stress.
本研究的目的是调查社会压力和压力诱导的皮质醇对社会威胁的前意识选择性注意的影响。20名健康参与者在休息和社会压力条件下接受了一项隐蔽情绪斯特鲁普任务（比较愤怒、中性和快乐面孔的颜色命名潜伏期）。压力通过特里尔社会压力测试诱导产生。根据压力诱导的皮质醇水平升高，参与者事后（中位数分割）被分为高反应者组和低反应者组。与低反应者相比，高反应者在休息状态下对威胁表现出消极或回避性的注意偏差（即愤怒面孔的潜伏期比中性面孔短）。最重要的是，尽管低反应者变得回避，但高反应者在压力诱导后对愤怒面孔变得警惕。快乐面孔没有这种效应。我们的研究结果与之前在动物和人类中的研究一致，这些研究将高糖皮质激素应激反应性与压力期间回避减少和冻结反应延长联系起来。
