Dibbets Pauline, Evers Elisabeth A T
Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Maastricht, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2017 Mar 16;8:347. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00347. eCollection 2017.
Formal theories have linked pathological anxiety to a failure in fear response inhibition. Previously, we showed that aberrant response inhibition is not restricted to anxiety patients, but can also be observed in anxiety-prone adults. However, less is known about the influence of currently experienced levels of anxiety on inhibitory learning. The topic is highly important as state anxiety has a debilitating effect on cognition, emotion, and physiology and is linked to several anxiety disorders. In the present study, healthy female volunteers performed a fear conditioning task, after being informed that they will have to perform the Trier Social Stress Test task ( = 25; experimental group) or a control task ( = 25; control group) upon completion of the conditioning task. The results showed that higher levels of state anxiety corresponded with a reduced discrimination between a stimulus (CS+) typically followed by an aversive event and a stimulus (CS-) that is never followed by an aversive event both during the acquisition and the extinction phase. No effect of state anxiety on the skin conductance response associated with CS+ and CS- was found. Additionally, higher levels of state anxiety coincided with more negative valence ratings of the CSs. The results suggest that increased stress-induced state anxiety might lead to stimulus generalization during fear acquisition, thereby impairing associative learning.
形式理论已将病理性焦虑与恐惧反应抑制失败联系起来。此前，我们表明异常的反应抑制并不局限于焦虑症患者，在易焦虑的成年人中也能观察到。然而，对于当前所经历的焦虑水平对抑制性学习的影响，我们了解得较少。由于状态焦虑会对认知、情绪和生理产生削弱作用，且与多种焦虑症相关，所以这个话题非常重要。在本研究中，健康女性志愿者在得知完成恐惧条件任务后将进行特里尔社会应激测试任务（n = 25；实验组）或对照任务（n = 25；对照组）后，执行了恐惧条件任务。结果显示，在习得阶段和消退阶段，较高水平的状态焦虑都与区分通常伴有厌恶事件的刺激（CS +）和从未伴有厌恶事件的刺激（CS -）的能力下降有关。未发现状态焦虑对与CS +和CS -相关的皮肤电导反应有影响。此外，较高水平的状态焦虑与对CS的更多负性效价评定同时出现。结果表明，应激诱导的状态焦虑增加可能会导致恐惧习得过程中的刺激泛化，从而损害联想学习。
