Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster and University Hospital Münster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany.
Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster, Germany.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2022 Oct;22(5):1157-1171. doi: 10.3758/s13415-022-00998-x. Epub 2022 Mar 29.
The human brain's ability to quickly detect dangerous stimuli is crucial in selecting appropriate responses to possible threats. Trait anxiety has been suggested to moderate these processes on certain processing stages. To dissociate such different information-processing stages, research using classical conditioning has begun to examine event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to fear-conditioned (CS +) faces. However, the impact of trait anxiety on ERPs to fear-conditioned faces depending on specific task conditions is unknown. In this preregistered study, we measured ERPs to faces paired with aversive loud screams (CS +) or neutral sounds (CS -) in a large sample (N = 80) under three different task conditions. Participants had to discriminate face-irrelevant perceptual information, the gender of the faces, or the CS category. Results showed larger amplitudes in response to aversively conditioned faces for all examined ERPs, whereas interactions with the attended feature occurred for the P1 and the early posterior negativity (EPN). For the P1, larger CS + effects were observed during the perceptual distraction task, while the EPN was increased for CS + faces when deciding about the CS association. Remarkably, we found no significant correlations between ERPs and trait anxiety. Thus, fear-conditioning potentiates all ERP amplitudes, some processing stages being further modulated by the task. However, the finding that these ERP differences were not affected by individual differences in trait anxiety does not support theoretical accounts assuming increased threat processing or reduced threat discrimination depending on trait anxiety.
人类大脑快速检测危险刺激的能力对于选择对可能威胁的适当反应至关重要。特质焦虑被认为可以调节这些过程在某些加工阶段。为了分离这些不同的信息加工阶段，使用经典条件反射的研究开始检查与恐惧条件（CS+）面孔相关的事件相关电位（ERP）。然而，特质焦虑对基于特定任务条件的恐惧条件面孔的 ERP 的影响尚不清楚。在这项预先注册的研究中，我们在三个不同的任务条件下，在一个大样本（N=80）中测量了与厌恶的响亮尖叫（CS+）或中性声音（CS-）配对的面孔的 ERP。参与者必须辨别与面孔无关的知觉信息、面孔的性别或 CS 类别。结果表明，对于所有检查的 ERP，对厌恶条件的面孔的反应幅度较大，而对于 P1 和早期后负性（EPN）则发生了与关注特征的相互作用。对于 P1，在感知分心任务中观察到更大的 CS+效应，而在决定 CS 关联时，EPN 则增加了 CS+面孔。值得注意的是，我们没有发现 ERP 和特质焦虑之间存在显著相关性。因此，恐惧条件增强了所有 ERP 幅度，一些加工阶段进一步受到任务的调节。然而，这些 ERP 差异不受特质焦虑个体差异影响的发现不支持假设特质焦虑增加威胁处理或降低威胁辨别能力的理论解释。
