Knauth Kilian, Peters Jan
Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2022 Apr;59(4):e13996. doi: 10.1111/psyp.13996. Epub 2022 Jan 17.
Humans and many animals devalue future rewards as a function of time (temporal discounting). Increased discounting has been linked to various psychiatric conditions, including substance-use-disorders, behavioral addictions, and obesity. Despite its high intra-individual stability, temporal discounting is partly under contextual control. One prominent manipulation that has been linked to increases in discounting is the exposure to highly arousing appetitive cues. However, results from trial-wise cue exposure studies appear highly mixed, and changes in physiological arousal were not adequately controlled. Here we tested the effects of appetitive (erotic), aversive, and neutral visual cues on temporal discounting in 35 healthy male participants. The contribution of single-trial physiological arousal was assessed using comprehensive monitoring of autonomic activity (pupil size, heart rate, electrodermal activity). Physiological arousal was elevated following aversive and in particular erotic cues. In contrast to our pre-registered hypothesis, steepness of temporal discounting was not significantly affected by emotional cues of either valence. Aversive cues tended to increase decision noise. Computational modeling revealed that trial-wise arousal only accounted for minor variance over and above aversive and erotic condition effects, arguing against a general effect of physiological arousal on temporal discounting.
人类和许多动物会根据时间对未来奖励进行折扣（时间折扣）。折扣增加与多种精神疾病有关，包括物质使用障碍、行为成瘾和肥胖症。尽管时间折扣在个体内部具有高度稳定性，但它部分受情境控制。一种与折扣增加相关的显著操纵是暴露于高度唤起食欲的线索。然而，逐次线索暴露研究的结果似乎高度混杂，并且生理唤起的变化没有得到充分控制。在这里，我们测试了愉悦（色情）、厌恶和中性视觉线索对35名健康男性参与者时间折扣的影响。使用自主活动（瞳孔大小、心率、皮肤电活动）的全面监测来评估单次试验生理唤起的作用。厌恶线索，尤其是色情线索后生理唤起增强。与我们预先注册的假设相反，时间折扣的陡峭程度不受任何效价情绪线索的显著影响。厌恶线索倾向于增加决策噪声。计算模型显示，逐次唤起仅占厌恶和色情条件效应之外的微小方差，这表明生理唤起对时间折扣没有普遍影响。
