Putman Peter, Hermans Erno J, van Honk Jack
Department of Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2007 Jan;32(1):14-21. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2006.09.010. Epub 2006 Nov 7.
Studies assessing processing of facial expressions have established that cortisol levels, emotional traits, and affective disorders predict selective responding to these motivationally relevant stimuli in expression specific manners. For instance, increased attentional processing of fearful faces (attentional bias for fearful faces) is associated with fear and anxiety and diminishes after administration of the anxiolytic hormone testosterone. Conversely, attentional bias for angry faces has been associated with higher levels of approach motivation (e.g. anger) and testosterone, but lower levels of cortisol. This negative relation between cortisol levels and bias for angry faces was also seen in a test of biased working memory performance. However, previous research suggests that exogenous glucocorticoids acutely decrease fearful and inhibited behavior and increase aggressiveness. Hypothesizing from these findings, the present study tested this spatial working memory for faces of various emotional expressions (neutral, happy, fearful, and angry) after double-blind, placebo-controlled administration of 40 mg cortisol in 18 healthy young men. It was predicted that cortisol would acutely attenuate memory bias for fearful expressions while increasing memory bias for angry expressions, in effect creating a shift in biased motivated memory from fear to anger. Results largely confirmed the hypotheses. This is the first causal evidence that cortisol differentially regulates spatial working memory for different facial expressions. Possible biological mechanisms are discussed.
评估面部表情加工过程的研究表明，皮质醇水平、情绪特质和情感障碍以表情特异性方式预测对这些动机相关刺激的选择性反应。例如，对恐惧面孔的注意力加工增加（对恐惧面孔的注意力偏差）与恐惧和焦虑相关，并且在给予抗焦虑激素睾酮后会减弱。相反，对愤怒面孔的注意力偏差与较高水平的趋近动机（如愤怒）和睾酮相关，但皮质醇水平较低。在一项关于有偏差的工作记忆表现的测试中也观察到了皮质醇水平与对愤怒面孔的偏差之间的这种负相关关系。然而，先前的研究表明，外源性糖皮质激素会急性降低恐惧和抑制行为，并增加攻击性。基于这些发现进行假设，本研究在18名健康年轻男性中进行了双盲、安慰剂对照的40毫克皮质醇给药后，测试了对各种情绪表情（中性、快乐、恐惧和愤怒）面孔的空间工作记忆。预计皮质醇会急性减弱对恐惧表情的记忆偏差，同时增加对愤怒表情的记忆偏差，实际上会导致有偏差的动机记忆从恐惧转向愤怒。结果在很大程度上证实了这些假设。这是第一个表明皮质醇对不同面部表情的空间工作记忆有差异调节作用的因果证据。文中还讨论了可能的生物学机制。
