Michalowski Jaroslaw M, Pané-Farré Christiane A, Löw Andreas, Hamm Alfons O
University of Warsaw, Department of Differential Psychology, 00183 Warsaw, Poland and
University of Greifswald, Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, 17487 Greifswald, Germany.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Sep;10(9):1177-86. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsv002. Epub 2015 Jan 20.
This study systematically investigated the sensitivity of the phobic attention system by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) in spider-phobic and non-phobic volunteers in a context where spider and neutral pictures were presented (phobic threat condition) and in contexts where no phobic but unpleasant and neutral or only neutral pictures were displayed (phobia-irrelevant conditions). In a between-group study, participants were assigned to phobia-irrelevant conditions either before or after the exposure to spider pictures (pre-exposure vs post-exposure participants). Additionally, each picture was preceded by a fixation cross presented in one of three different colors that were informative about the category of an upcoming picture. In the phobic threat condition, spider-phobic participants showed a larger P1 than controls for all pictures and signal cues. Moreover, individuals with spider phobia who were sensitized by the exposure to phobic stimuli (i.e. post-exposure participants) responded with an increased P1 also in phobia-irrelevant conditions. In contrast, no group differences between spider-phobic and non-phobic individuals were observed in the P1-amplitudes during viewing of phobia-irrelevant stimuli in the pre-exposure group. In addition, cues signaling neutral pictures elicited decreased stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) compared with cues signaling emotional pictures. Moreover, emotional pictures and cues signaling emotional pictures evoked larger early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) than neutral stimuli. Spider phobics showed greater selective attention effects than controls for phobia-relevant pictures (increased EPN and LPP) and cues (increased LPP and SPN). Increased sensitization of the attention system observed in spider-phobic individuals might facilitate fear conditioning and promote generalization of fear playing an important role in the maintenance of anxiety disorders.
本研究通过测量蜘蛛恐惧症患者和非恐惧症志愿者在呈现蜘蛛图片和中性图片的情境（恐惧威胁条件）以及不呈现恐惧但呈现不愉快和中性图片或仅呈现中性图片的情境（与恐惧症无关的条件）下的事件相关电位（ERP），系统地研究了恐惧注意系统的敏感性。在一项组间研究中，参与者在接触蜘蛛图片之前或之后被分配到与恐惧症无关的条件（暴露前与暴露后参与者）。此外，每张图片之前都有一个呈现为三种不同颜色之一的注视十字，这些颜色提供了关于即将出现图片类别的信息。在恐惧威胁条件下，对于所有图片和信号线索，蜘蛛恐惧症患者的P1波幅比对照组更大。此外，因接触恐惧刺激而敏感化的蜘蛛恐惧症个体（即暴露后参与者）在与恐惧症无关的条件下也表现出P1波幅增加。相比之下，在暴露前组观看与恐惧症无关的刺激时，蜘蛛恐惧症患者和非恐惧症个体在P1波幅上未观察到组间差异。此外，与信号情绪图片的线索相比，信号中性图片的线索引起的刺激前负波（SPN）降低。此外，情绪图片和信号情绪图片的线索比中性刺激诱发更大的早期后负波（EPN）和晚期正电位（LPP）。蜘蛛恐惧症患者对与恐惧症相关的图片（EPN和LPP增加）和线索（LPP和SPN增加）表现出比对照组更大的选择性注意效应。在蜘蛛恐惧症个体中观察到的注意系统敏感性增加可能有助于恐惧条件反射并促进恐惧的泛化，这在焦虑症的维持中起重要作用。
