Takács Ádám, Kóbor Andrea, Janacsek Karolina, Honbolygó Ferenc, Csépe Valéria, Németh Dezső
Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Izabella utca 46., H-1064, Budapest, Hungary.
Brain Imaging Centre, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Magyar tudósok körútja 2., H-1117, Budapest, Hungary.
Neurosci Lett. 2015 Jul 23;600:188-92. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2015.06.022. Epub 2015 Jun 17.
Expectation biases could affect decision making in trait anxiety. Studying the alterations of feedback processing in real-life risk-taking tasks could reveal the presence of expectation biases at the neural level. A functional relevance of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) is the expression of outcome expectation errors. The aim of the study was to investigate whether nonclinical adults with high trait anxiety show smaller FRN for negative feedback than those with low trait anxiety. Participants (N=26) were assigned to low and high trait anxiety groups by a median split on the state-trait anxiety inventory trait score. They performed a balloon analogue risk task (BART) where they pumped a balloon on a screen. Each pump yielded either a reward or a balloon pop. If the balloon popped, the accumulated reward was lost. Participants were matched on their behavioral performance. We measured event-related brain potentials time-locked to the presentation of the feedback (balloon increase or pop). Our results showed that the FRN for balloon pops was decreased in the high anxiety group compared to the low anxiety group. We propose that pessimistic expectations triggered by the ambiguity in the BART decreased outcome expectation errors in the high anxiety group indicated by the smaller FRN. Our results highlight the importance of expectation biases at the neural level of decision making in anxiety.
期望偏差可能会影响特质焦虑中的决策。研究现实生活中冒险任务中反馈处理的变化可以揭示神经层面上期望偏差的存在。反馈相关负波（FRN）的功能相关性在于结果期望误差的表达。本研究的目的是调查高特质焦虑的非临床成年人在面对负面反馈时，其FRN是否比低特质焦虑的成年人更小。通过状态-特质焦虑量表特质得分的中位数分割，将参与者（N = 26）分为低特质焦虑组和高特质焦虑组。他们进行了一项气球模拟风险任务（BART），在屏幕上给一个气球打气。每次打气要么会得到奖励，要么气球会爆掉。如果气球爆了，累积的奖励就会失去。参与者在行为表现上进行了匹配。我们测量了与反馈（气球膨胀或爆掉）呈现时间锁定的事件相关脑电位。我们的结果表明，与低焦虑组相比，高焦虑组中气球爆掉时的FRN降低。我们提出，BART中的模糊性引发的悲观期望减少了高焦虑组中的结果期望误差，这由较小的FRN表明。我们的结果突出了期望偏差在焦虑决策神经层面的重要性。
