Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.
Psychophysiology. 2024 Dec;61(12):e14700. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14700. Epub 2024 Oct 11.
The approach-avoidance task (AAT) is designed to measure implicit motivated action biases instantiated by emotional stimuli and alterations in such biases that drive psychiatric disorder. While some research has measured AAT event-related potential (ERP) correlates to establish bias sensitivity even at a neural level, a lack of work with unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral stimuli together and a common focus on psychiatric disorder-matched (rather than generally emotional) content limits conclusions that can be drawn. Thus, current work extends the AAT literature by testing ERP modulations across normatively unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral conditions; and supporting the task's use as an individual difference assessment, it also provides data on AAT reliability and initially explores anxiety-related effects when stimuli are not disorder-matched. In 38 participants including 19 anxiety treatment-seeking individuals, 32 sensor electroencephalography revealed robust N100, N200, and late positive potential (LPP) ERP components and bias-consistent modulations for unpleasant images (reduced N200s on unpleasant push relative to pull trials; enhanced LPP for unpleasant compared to neutral trials). Meanwhile, modulations were less consistent with emotion-driven bias for other conditions-that is, LPPs were enhanced but N200 was not modulated for pleasant images, and for neutral images, N200 was unexpectedly enhanced on push compared to pull trials. Following these analyses, reliability tests revealed excellent raw ERP reliabilities but lower reliabilities for modulation scores, and comparing treatment- to non-treatment-seeking groups showed no preliminary indication of ERP modulation changes when stimuli are not personally relevant. How these findings together inform understanding of AAT as a measure of bias is discussed.
趋近-回避任务(AAT)旨在测量由情绪刺激引发的内隐动机行为偏差,以及驱动精神障碍的这种偏差变化。虽然一些研究已经测量了趋近-回避任务事件相关电位(ERP)相关性,以在神经水平上确定偏差敏感性,但缺乏对不愉快、愉快和中性刺激的综合研究,以及对与精神障碍相匹配(而不是一般情绪)的内容的共同关注,限制了可以得出的结论。因此,目前的工作通过测试正常不愉快、愉快和中性条件下的 ERP 调制,扩展了趋近-回避任务的文献;并支持该任务作为个体差异评估的使用,还提供了趋近-回避任务可靠性的数据,并初步探索了当刺激不与障碍匹配时与焦虑相关的影响。在 38 名参与者中,包括 19 名寻求焦虑治疗的个体,32 个传感器脑电图显示出强大的 N100、N200 和晚期正电位(LPP)ERP 成分,以及与不愉快图像相关的一致偏差调制(与不愉快推相对拉试验相比,不愉快图像的 N200 减少;与中性试验相比,不愉快图像的 LPP 增强)。同时,对于其他条件,调制与情绪驱动的偏差不太一致——也就是说,LPP 增强,但 N200 对愉快图像的调制没有变化,对于中性图像,N200 出人意料地在推相对于拉试验时增强。在这些分析之后,可靠性测试显示原始 ERP 可靠性非常高,但调制分数的可靠性较低,比较治疗和非治疗寻求组时,当刺激与个人无关时,没有初步迹象表明 ERP 调制变化。这些发现一起如何为理解趋近-回避任务作为一种偏差测量方法提供信息进行了讨论。