Balaban M T, Taussig H N
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Biol Psychol. 1994 Oct;38(2-3):117-31. doi: 10.1016/0301-0511(94)90033-7.
Affective valence modulates the magnitude of the human startle blink such that blinks are reduced by positive affect and enhanced by negative affect. Do different negative contents similarly potentiate startle? Our first study compared the effects of slides selected to depict positive, neutral, frightening, or disgusting scenes. Blink magnitude was significantly facilitated during frightening pictures and attenuated during positive pictures, but blinks during disgusting pictures did not differ from the neutral condition. Replicating previous work, skin conductance magnitude and baseline EMG activity were greater during affective than neutral scenes. In an additional group of 12 subjects, both reaction times for whether slide content was positive or negative and subsequent picture recall were similar for frightening and disgusting pictures. A follow-up study replicated the blink results for subjects who viewed the same picture set and for subjects who viewed only positive, neutral, and disgusting pictures. These results suggest that scenes depicting fear or threat may be especially salient in the affective augmentation of human startle.
情感效价调节人类惊跳眨眼的幅度，使得眨眼在积极情感下减少，在消极情感下增强。不同的负面内容是否同样会增强惊跳反应？我们的第一项研究比较了选择用来描绘积极、中性、恐怖或恶心场景的幻灯片的效果。在观看恐怖图片时眨眼幅度显著增强，在观看积极图片时眨眼幅度减弱，但在观看恶心图片时眨眼幅度与中性条件下没有差异。重复之前的研究，情感场景下的皮肤电导幅度和基线肌电图活动比中性场景时更大。在另一组12名受试者中，对于恐怖图片和恶心图片，判断幻灯片内容是积极还是消极的反应时间以及随后的图片回忆都相似。一项后续研究重复了观看相同图片集的受试者以及只观看积极、中性和恶心图片的受试者的眨眼结果。这些结果表明，描绘恐惧或威胁的场景在人类惊跳反应的情感增强中可能特别突出。
