Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Binghamton.
Emotion. 2019 Oct;19(7):1127-1137. doi: 10.1037/emo0000521. Epub 2018 Oct 18.
When we view emotionally arousing images, our perception of stimuli that follow soon afterward is transiently impaired-a phenomenon known as emotion-induced blindness. Previous studies have demonstrated that the magnitude and time course of this visual processing impairment is exaggerated by the presence of psychopathology and anxiety-related traits. Here, we tested whether emotional interference on a primary task can be modulated on a more dynamic basis, by the anticipation of unpredictable electric shock. We embedded naturalistic scenes in a 10-Hz rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream, while varying the hedonic content of distractor images (aversive or neutral) and their temporal position (200, 400, and 700 ms) with respect to landscape targets. In Experiment 1, we found that, under typical conditions, aversive distractors induced a temporary visual performance decrement that exhibited a full rebound following a 400-ms distractor-target lag. In Experiment 2, subjects performed an identical RSVP task while under continuous threat of electric shock. We found that threat of unpredictable electric shock prolonged the duration of the emotional interference out to 400 ms and 700 ms, without affecting the overall magnitude of the performance impairment. In Experiment 3, the prolonged emotional interference under threat of unpredictable electric shock persisted at the 400-ms lag despite observed practice effects within subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
当我们观看情绪激动的图像时，我们对随后很快出现的刺激的感知会暂时受损——这种现象被称为情绪诱导的失明。先前的研究表明，这种视觉处理损伤的程度和时间进程会因精神病理学和焦虑相关特征的存在而加剧。在这里，我们测试了在更动态的基础上，通过对不可预测的电击的预期，是否可以调节主要任务上的情绪干扰。我们将自然场景嵌入到 10Hz 的快速序列视觉呈现 (RSVP) 流中，同时改变分心图像的享乐内容（令人不快或中性）及其相对于景观目标的时间位置（200、400 和 700ms）。在实验 1 中，我们发现，在典型条件下，令人不快的分心物会导致暂时的视觉表现下降，在 400ms 的分心物-目标延迟后会完全反弹。在实验 2 中，被试在持续受到不可预测电击威胁的情况下执行了相同的 RSVP 任务。我们发现，不可预测的电击威胁会将情绪干扰的持续时间延长到 400ms 和 700ms，而不会影响性能损伤的整体程度。在实验 3 中，尽管在被试中观察到了练习效应，但在不可预测的电击威胁下，延长的情绪干扰在 400ms 延迟时仍然存在。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
