Chen Menghuan, Reutter Mario, Pauli Paul, Gamer Matthias, Pittig Andre
Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Translational Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2025 Jul;62(7):e70101. doi: 10.1111/psyp.70101.
Adequate control over automatic responses to affective stimuli is crucial for adaptive goal-oriented behavior. However, it remains unclear how individuals overcome automatic approach-avoidance tendencies to appetitive and aversive stimuli. Here we examined free versus forced approach-avoidance decisions to four conditioned stimuli (CSs), which were previously paired with either a single aversive (avCS+) or appetitive outcome (appCS+), both (i.e., conflicting) outcomes (confCS+), or no outcome (neuCS-). These CSs were presented in an anticipation phase before participants could use a joystick to either approach and obtain CS-specific outcomes or avoid without getting anything. Response times, subjective ratings, heart rate, and eye-tracking data were recorded in N = 75 participants. Results revealed that for single outcomes, concordant responses (e.g., avoidance to the avCS+) were faster than forced discordant responses (e.g., approach to the avCS+). During anticipation, gaze fixations shifted towards the spatial location associated with the concordant response for single-outcome stimuli (e.g., upward for avoidance of avCS+). Conflicting stimuli elicited intermediate behavioral and gaze patterns at the group level, while exploratory analyses revealed substantial individual differences: High avoiders (i.e., participants showing an overall high proportion of avoidance) exhibited slower approach responses and greater threat-focused visual attention compared to low avoiders. Decreased heart rate in response to all CSs suggests a general preparation of behavioral responses, while increased pupil dilation during the anticipation of aversive stimuli indicates threat-related processing. These findings suggest that competing outcomes can amplify individual differences in motivational salience and therefore might inspire clinical interventions focused on inhibiting disorder-specific behavioral tendencies.
对情感刺激的自动反应进行充分控制对于适应性目标导向行为至关重要。然而，尚不清楚个体如何克服对偏好性和厌恶性刺激的自动趋近-回避倾向。在此，我们研究了对四种条件刺激（CSs）的自由与强制趋近-回避决策，这些条件刺激之前分别与单一厌恶性（avCS+）或偏好性结果（appCS+）、两者（即冲突性）结果（confCS+）或无结果（neuCS-）配对。在参与者能够使用操纵杆趋近并获得特定CS结果或回避而一无所获之前，这些CSs在预期阶段呈现。记录了N = 75名参与者的反应时间、主观评分、心率和眼动追踪数据。结果显示，对于单一结果，一致反应（例如，回避avCS+）比强制不一致反应（例如，趋近avCS+）更快。在预期期间，注视点转向与单一结果刺激的一致反应相关的空间位置（例如，向上表示回避avCS+）。冲突性刺激在群体水平上引发了中间的行为和注视模式，而探索性分析揭示了个体间的显著差异：高回避者（即总体回避比例高的参与者）与低回避者相比，趋近反应较慢且对威胁的视觉注意力更强。对所有CSs的心率下降表明行为反应的总体准备，而在预期厌恶性刺激期间瞳孔扩张增加表明与威胁相关的加工。这些发现表明，相互冲突的结果可能会放大动机显著性的个体差异，因此可能会激发针对抑制特定障碍行为倾向的临床干预。
