Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Psicothema. 2023 Feb;35(1):30-40. doi: 10.7334/psicothema2022.326.
Using a foreign language can influence emotion modulation, but whether different psychotherapy processes would be affected by a foreign language is still unclear. The current study explored the foreign language effect on the extinction of fear.
During the conditioning phase, part of the neutral stimuli presented to the participants were associated with a threat, while they performed a countdown task in their native language. In the extinction phase, participants performed the same task either in their native/foreign language and were informed that the threat would no longer appear. We collected self-reports of fear, and pupil dilation and electrodermal activity as physiological measures of arousal.
Extinction was successful, indicated by greater self-reported fear and pupil dilation during the threat condition compared to neutral in the conditioning phase, but no significant differences during extinction. Although the foreign language group presented higher arousal, fear extinction occurred regardless of the linguistic context.
Fear extinction via verbal instructions is equally effective in a foreign and a native language context. These results indicate that evidence should be continue to be gathered on the role of foreign languages using basic paradigms with clinical applications.
使用外语会影响情绪调节，但不同的心理治疗过程是否会受到外语的影响尚不清楚。本研究探讨了外语对恐惧消退的影响。
在条件作用阶段，向参与者呈现的部分中性刺激与威胁相关联，而他们用母语进行倒数计时任务。在消退阶段，参与者用母语/外语完成相同的任务，并被告知威胁将不再出现。我们收集了恐惧的自我报告，以及瞳孔扩张和皮肤电活动作为唤醒的生理测量。
消退是成功的，与条件作用阶段的中性相比，在威胁条件下自我报告的恐惧和瞳孔扩张更大，但在消退阶段没有显著差异。尽管外语组表现出更高的唤醒，但无论语言环境如何，恐惧消退都发生了。
通过口头指令进行的恐惧消退在母语和外语环境中同样有效。这些结果表明，应该继续使用具有临床应用的基本范式来收集关于外语作用的证据。
