Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Belgium.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2011 May;80(2):161-5. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2011.02.015. Epub 2011 Mar 3.
Fear of interoceptive sensations is relevant for a number of psychiatric and somatic disorders. Pappens et al. (2010, Biol. Psychol. 84, 98-103) reported elevated skin conductance responses (SCR), subjective fear, and a paradoxical lack of startle potentiation during aversive respiratory stimulation with an inspiratory resistive load (IRL). This study aimed to replicate these findings and to explore whether the lack of startle potentiation during an aversive IRL is related to attentional allocation to the IRL. Reaction times to the acoustic startle probe served as an indirect index of attentional focus on the respiratory stimulus. The earlier findings on SCR and subjective fear were replicated. However, startle potentiation occurred for the aversive IRL with a 1500 ms lead interval, and reaction times to the acoustic probe were not slower for the aversive IRL compared to other types of lead stimuli. This suggests that startle potentiation during aversive respiratory stimulation with IRLs only occurs when an exteroceptive task limits attentional allocation to the interoceptive experience.
对内脏感觉的恐惧与许多精神和躯体障碍有关。Pappens 等人（2010 年，《生物心理学》84 卷，第 98-103 页）报告称，在吸气阻力负荷（IRL）引起的令人厌恶的呼吸刺激期间，皮肤电传导反应（SCR）、主观恐惧升高，以及惊跳反射增强的反常缺失。本研究旨在复制这些发现，并探讨在令人厌恶的 IRL 期间惊跳反射增强缺失是否与对 IRL 的注意力分配有关。对听觉惊跳探针的反应时间作为对呼吸刺激注意力焦点的间接指标。SCR 和主观恐惧的早期发现得到了复制。然而，对于具有 1500 毫秒先导间隔的令人厌恶的 IRL，惊跳反射增强发生，并且与其他类型的先导刺激相比，对令人厌恶的 IRL 的反应时间并不更慢。这表明，只有在外周任务限制对内脏体验的注意力分配时，IRL 引起的令人厌恶的呼吸刺激期间才会发生惊跳反射增强。
