Van den Bergh Omer, Brosschot Jos, Critchley Hugo, Thayer Julian F, Ottaviani Cristina
Health Psychology, University of Leuven.
Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2021 Mar;16(2):225-246. doi: 10.1177/1745691620950690. Epub 2020 Oct 2.
Several labels, such as neuroticism, negative emotionality, and dispositional negativity, indicate a broad dimension of psychopathology. However, largely separate, often disorder-specific research lines have developed that focus on different cognitive and affective characteristics that are associated with this dimension, such as perseverative cognition (worry, rumination), reduced autobiographical memory specificity, compromised fear learning, and enhanced somatic-symptom reporting. In this article, we present a theoretical perspective within a predictive-processing framework in which we trace these phenotypically different characteristics back to a common underlying "better-safe-than-sorry" processing strategy. This implies information processing that tends to be low in sensory-perceptual detail, which allows threat-related categorical priors to dominate conscious experience and for chronic uncertainty/surprise because of a stagnated error-reduction process. This common information-processing strategy has beneficial effects in the short term but important costs in the long term. From this perspective, we suggest that the phenomenally distinct cognitive and affective psychopathological characteristics mentioned above represent the same basic processing heuristic of the brain and are only different in relation to the particular type of information involved (e.g., in working memory, in autobiographical memory, in the external and internal world). Clinical implications of this view are discussed.
诸如神经质、负性情绪和特质性消极等几个标签，表明了精神病理学的一个广泛维度。然而，已经形成了很大程度上相互独立、通常针对特定障碍的研究路线，这些路线聚焦于与该维度相关的不同认知和情感特征，比如持续认知（担忧、沉思）、自传体记忆特异性降低、恐惧学习受损以及躯体症状报告增加。在本文中，我们在预测加工框架内提出一种理论观点，在该框架中，我们将这些表型上不同的特征追溯到一种共同的潜在“宁可稳妥免致后悔”加工策略。这意味着信息加工在感觉 - 知觉细节方面往往较低，这使得与威胁相关的类别先验能够主导意识体验，并由于错误减少过程停滞而导致长期的不确定性/意外。这种共同的信息加工策略在短期内有有益影响，但从长期来看有重要代价。从这个角度来看，我们认为上述在现象上不同的认知和情感精神病理特征代表了大脑相同的基本加工启发式，并且仅在涉及的特定信息类型方面有所不同（例如，在工作记忆、自传体记忆、外部和内部世界中）。我们讨论了这一观点的临床意义。
