Janssens Thomas, Caris Eva, Van Diest Ilse, Van den Bergh Omer
Health Psychology, KU LeuvenLeuven, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2017 Jun 7;8:926. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00926. eCollection 2017.
In asthma and allergic rhinitis, beliefs about what triggers allergic reactions often do not match objective allergy tests. This may be due to insensitivity for expectancy violations as a result of holding trigger beliefs based on conceptual relationships among triggers. In this laboratory experiment, we aimed to investigate how pre-existing beliefs and conceptual relationships among triggers interact with actual experience when learning differential symptom expectations. Healthy participants ( = 48) received information that allergic reactions were a result of specific sensitivities versus general allergic vulnerability. Next, they performed a trigger learning task using a differential conditioning paradigm: brief inhalation of CO enriched air was used to induce symptoms, while participants were led to believe that the symptoms came about as a result of inhaled allergens (conditioned stimuli, CS's; CS+ followed by symptoms, CS- not followed by symptoms). CS+ and CS- stimuli either shared (e.g., birds-mammals) or did not share (e.g. birds-fungi) category membership. During Acquisition, participants reported symptom expectancy and symptom intensity for all triggers. During a Test 1 day later, participants rated symptom expectancies for old CS+/CS- triggers, for novel triggers within categories, and for exemplars of novel trigger categories. Data were analyzed using multilevel models. Only a subgroup of participants ( = 22) showed differences between CO and room air symptoms. In this group of responders, analysis of symptom expectancies during acquisition did not result in significant differential symptom CS+/CS- acquisition. A retention test 1 day later showed differential CS+/CS- symptom expectancies: When CS categories did not share category membership, specific sensitivity beliefs improved retention of CS+/CS- differentiation. However, when CS categories shared category membership, general vulnerability beliefs improved retention of CS+/CS- differentiation. Furthermore, participants showed some selectivity in generalization of symptom expectancies to novel categories, as symptom expectancies did not generalize to novel categories that were unrelated to CS+ or CS- categories. Generalization to novel categories was not affected by information about general vulnerability or specific sensitivities. Pre-existing vulnerability beliefs and conceptual relationships between trigger categories influence differential symptom expectancies to allergic triggers.
在哮喘和过敏性鼻炎中，关于引发过敏反应的因素的认知往往与客观的过敏测试结果不符。这可能是由于基于触发因素之间的概念关系持有触发信念，从而对预期违背不敏感。在这个实验室实验中，我们旨在研究预先存在的信念以及触发因素之间的概念关系在学习不同症状预期时如何与实际体验相互作用。48名健康参与者被告知过敏反应是特定敏感性还是一般过敏易感性的结果。接下来，他们使用差异条件作用范式执行触发学习任务：短暂吸入富含一氧化碳的空气以诱发症状，而参与者被引导相信症状是吸入过敏原（条件刺激，CS；CS+后出现症状，CS-后不出现症状）的结果。CS+和CS-刺激要么共享（例如，鸟类 - 哺乳动物）要么不共享（例如，鸟类 - 真菌）类别成员关系。在习得阶段，参与者报告所有触发因素的症状预期和症状强度。在一天后的测试1中，参与者对旧的CS+/CS-触发因素、类别内的新触发因素以及新触发因素类别的示例进行症状预期评分。使用多层模型分析数据。只有一部分参与者（22名）在一氧化碳和室内空气症状之间表现出差异。在这组有反应者中，习得阶段症状预期的分析并未导致CS+/CS-习得的显著差异症状。一天后的留存测试显示出CS+/CS-症状预期的差异：当CS类别不共享类别成员关系时，特定敏感性信念提高了CS+/CS-区分的留存率。然而，当CS类别共享类别成员关系时，一般易感性信念提高了CS+/CS-区分的留存率。此外，参与者在将症状预期推广到新类别方面表现出一定的选择性，因为症状预期不会推广到与CS+或CS-类别无关的新类别。对新类别的推广不受关于一般易感性或特定敏感性信息的影响。预先存在的易感性信念和触发因素类别之间的概念关系会影响对过敏触发因素的差异症状预期。
