Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Jaume I University, Castellón, Spain.
Ciber. Fisiopatología Obesidad y Nutrición, (CIBERObn), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jan 18;8(1):1157. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-19352-8.
Emotions are at the core of human nature. There is evidence that emotional reactivity in foreign languages compared to native languages is reduced. We explore whether this emotional distance could modulate fear conditioning, an essential mechanism for the understanding and treatment of anxiety disorders. A group of participants was verbally informed (either in a foreign or in a native language) that two different stimuli could be either cueing the potential presence of a threat stimulus or its absence. We registered pupil size and electrodermal activity and calculated the difference in psychophysiological responses to conditioned and to unconditioned stimuli. Our findings provided evidence that verbal conditioning processes are affected by language context in this paradigm. We report the first experimental evidence regarding how the use of a foreign language may reduce fear conditioning. This observation opens the avenue to the potential use of a foreign language in clinical contexts.
情绪是人类本性的核心。有证据表明，与母语相比，人在使用外语时的情绪反应会降低。我们探讨这种情感距离是否可以调节恐惧条件反射，这是理解和治疗焦虑症的重要机制。一组参与者被口头告知（无论是用外语还是母语），两个不同的刺激可能提示潜在威胁刺激的存在或不存在。我们记录了瞳孔大小和皮肤电活动，并计算了对条件刺激和非条件刺激的生理反应差异。我们的研究结果提供了证据，表明在这种范式中，语言语境会影响言语条件反射过程。我们报告了关于外语如何可能减少恐惧条件反射的第一个实验证据。这一观察结果为在临床环境中使用外语开辟了潜在途径。
