Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
Sci Rep. 2017 Nov 6;7(1):14607. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-14138-w.
The present study investigated the effect of acute stress on attentional bias to threat using behavioral and ERP methods. Sixty-two male participants were randomly assigned to a stress condition (Trier Social Stress Test) or a control condition. To examine the impact of stress-induced cortisol on attentional bias to threat, participants in the stress group were split into Low- and High cortisol responders. All participants were then administered a modified dot probe task in which the cues were neutral and angry faces. Behavioral results showed a pattern of attentional bias toward threat in the Control group but not in the stress group. For the ERPs, the P100 peaked earlier for the angry-cued targets than the neutral-cued targets in the Control group, which suggests a rapid, adaptive response toward threat. However, this effect was not observed in the stress group, suggesting a suppressed attentional bias under stress. In addition, the stress group (including both Low and High cortisol responders) showed reduced P300 amplitude to target onset than the Control group. These results suggest that acute stress disrupts attentional bias to threat including a reduction in early bias to threat in addition to a subsequent change of attention allocation.
本研究采用行为学和 ERP 方法考察了急性应激对威胁性注意偏向的影响。62 名男性被试随机分配到应激条件（特里尔社会应激测试）或对照条件下。为了检验应激诱导的皮质醇对威胁性注意偏向的影响，应激组的被试被分为低皮质醇反应者和高皮质醇反应者。所有被试随后接受了一项改良的点探测任务，其中线索为中性和愤怒面孔。行为学结果显示，在对照条件下存在对威胁的注意偏向模式，但在应激条件下则不存在。对于 ERP，在对照条件下，愤怒线索目标的 P100 比中性线索目标更早出现峰值，这表明对威胁的快速、适应性反应。然而，在应激条件下并未观察到这种效应，表明应激下注意偏向受到抑制。此外，应激组（包括低皮质醇反应者和高皮质醇反应者）对目标呈现的 P300 振幅比对照组小。这些结果表明，急性应激会破坏对威胁的注意偏向，包括对威胁的早期偏向减少，以及随后的注意力分配变化。
