Kan Yuecui, Wang Xuewei, Chen Xitong, Zhao Hanxuan, Lan Jijun, Duan Haijun
School of Psychology, Yanta Campus, Shaanxi Normal University, 199 South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, People's Republic of China.
Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology, Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Normal University Centre for Teacher Professional Ability Development, Yanta Campus, 199 South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, People's Republic of China.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2021 Feb;21(1):58-73. doi: 10.3758/s13415-020-00847-9. Epub 2020 Dec 2.
The present study is the first to examine the time-dependent mechanism of acute stress on emotional attentional blink (EAB) with event-related potential (ERP) measures. We explored the stage characteristics of stress affecting EAB, whether it affects the early selective attention process (marked by early posterior negativity) or the late working memory consolidation (marked by late positive potential). Sixty-one healthy participants were exposed to either a Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or a control condition, and salivary cortisol was measured to reflect the stress effect. ERPs were recorded during an attentional blink (AB) paradigm in which target one (T1) were negative or neutral images. Results showed stress generally reduced AB effects. Specifically, stress promoted the early selective attention process of target two (T2) following a neutral T1 but did not affect T2 consolidation into working memory. Correlational analyses further confirmed the positive effect of cortisol and negative emotional state on AB performance. Moreover, the ERP results of acute stress on AB conformed to the trade-off effect between T1 and T2; that is, stress reduced T1 late working memory consolidation and improved T2 early selective attention process. These findings further demonstrated that stress did not change the central resource limitation of AB. In general, stress generates a dissociable effect on AB early- and late-stage processing; namely, acute stress reduce the AB effect mainly from the improvement of participants' overall ability to select the targets in the early stage.
本研究首次采用事件相关电位（ERP）测量方法，探究急性应激对情绪性注意瞬脱（EAB）的时间依赖性机制。我们探讨了应激影响EAB的阶段特征，即它是否影响早期选择性注意过程（以早期后负波为标志）或晚期工作记忆巩固（以晚期正波为标志）。61名健康参与者被分为承受特里尔社会应激测试（TSST）组或对照组，并测量唾液皮质醇以反映应激效应。在注意瞬脱（AB）范式中记录ERP，其中目标一（T1）为负面或中性图像。结果显示，应激通常会降低AB效应。具体而言，应激促进了中性T1之后目标二（T2）的早期选择性注意过程，但不影响T2巩固到工作记忆中。相关性分析进一步证实了皮质醇和负面情绪状态对AB表现的积极影响。此外，急性应激对AB的ERP结果符合T1和T2之间的权衡效应；也就是说，应激减少了T1的晚期工作记忆巩固，并改善了T2的早期选择性注意过程。这些发现进一步证明，应激并未改变AB的中枢资源限制。总体而言，应激对AB的早期和晚期加工产生了可分离的影响；即急性应激主要通过提高参与者在早期选择目标的整体能力来降低AB效应。
