非自主闯入焦虑发生的机制：阈下启动效应的实验研究

本研究采用阈下情感启动范式, 研究威胁信息启动效应及其特质焦虑的调节作用,旨在揭示焦虑非自主闯入性特点形成的机制。实验在随机的三种条件下（阈上/阈下/基线）给38名被试呈现两种目标词（威胁词和中性词）,其中基线条件不呈现目标词;之后要求被试在回避目标词的条件下完成组词任务,结果：（1）无论是中性词还是威胁词,被试阈下条件下目标词的击中率显著高于基线条件;（2）特质焦虑对阈下启动效应起着调节作用：高焦虑组被试威胁词的启动效应显著高于中性词,低焦虑组被试中性词的启动效应显著高于威胁词。结论：阈下启动效应显著,高特质焦虑组个体对威胁信息的无意识加工会增强对威胁信息的意识加工,产生闯入性想法,导致焦虑非自主闯入性的特点。     

Individual differences in the perception of bodily sensations: The role of trait anxiety and coping style

Thirty young women participated in an experiment in which heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate, skin conductance level and palmar sweat index were monitored at rest and during the administration of mental arithmetic, mirror drawing and cold pressor tasks. The accuracy of perception of somatic states was estimated by calculating within-subject correlations between four bodily sensations (racing heart, high blood pressure, shortness of breath and sweaty hands) and corresponding physiological parameters, assessed on eight occasions during the experiment. The accuracy of heart rate perception was highest, with a mean correlation between actual heart rate and ratings of racing heart of 0.76 and 66% of participants showing significant within-subject effects. The mean accuracy was 0.55 for systolic blood pressure, 0.48 for respiration rate, 0.47 for skin conductance level, and 0.64 for palmar sweat index. Accurate perception across physiological parameters did not cluster within individuals, and was not dependent on the range either of physiological changes or sensation ratings. Trait anxiety was not significantly associated with accuracy of somatic perception. Subjects with high trait anxiety reported larger increases in shortness of breath during tasks than did low anxious subjects, but this was not reflected in objective physiological measures. Information-seeking coping style, indexed by the monitoring scale of the Miller Behavioral Style Scale, was related to the accuracy of perception of skin conductance level and heart rate. The use of within-subject correlational strategies for assessing individual differences in perception of bodily states is discussed.     

Conscious intrusion of threat information via unconscious priming in anxiety

Preferential processing of threat has been implicated in the development and perpetuation of anxiety. We investigated threat processing and anxiety using a subliminal priming paradigm. People with high or low trait anxiety viewed masked, briefly presented words, and then took an exclusion-completion test in which three-letter stems were to be completed without using recently perceived words. Completion rates were greater for words viewed subliminally compared to a baseline estimate. In addition, unconscious priming was greater for threat than for neutral words in the high-trait-anxiety group, and for neutral than for threat words in the low-trait-anxiety group. Enhanced unconscious priming of threat completions among anxious individuals may model intrusions in anxiety, when unconscious processing breaks into consciousness in the form of threat-related intrusive thoughts.     

Anxiety and the interpretation of ambiguous information: beyond the emotion-congruent effect

The authors investigated how anxiety influences the use of contextual information in the resolution of ambiguity. Participants heard ambiguous homophones (threat/neutral, positive/neural, and neutral/neutral) with related contextual information. State anxiety was manipulated experimentally. The interpretations of anxious participants were influenced by context to a greater extent than those of control participants. Some mood-incongruent effects were observed where anxious participants were more likely to adopt neutral interpretations of potentially threatening stimuli. Effects were observed in a spelling task (Experiments 1 and 2) and in a lexical decision task (Experiment 3), with supraliminal, and subliminal presentation of contextual cues, and with 2 different anxiety-induction procedures. Results show how anxiety affects both the content and the process of resolution of ambiguity.     

Components of attentional bias to threat in high trait anxiety: Facilitated engagement, impaired disengagement, and attentional avoidance

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating enhanced attention to threat in high trait anxious individuals (HTA) compared with low trait anxious individuals (LTA). In two experiments, we investigated whether this attentional bias is related to facilitated attentional engagement to threat or difficulties disengaging attention from threat. HTA and LTA undergraduates performed a modified exogenous cueing task, in which the location of a target was correctly or incorrectly cued by neutral, highly and mildly threatening pictures. Results indicate that at 100 ms picture presentation, HTA individuals more strongly engaged their attention with and showed impaired disengagement from highly threatening pictures than LTA individuals. In addition, HTA individuals showed a stronger tendency to attentional avoidance of threat at the 200 and 500 ms picture presentation. These data provide evidence for differential patterns of anxiety-related biases in attentive processing of threat at early versus later stages of information processing.     

Seeing is believing: Utilization of subliminal symbols requires a visible relevant context

Sensory input that is not available for conscious report can still affect our behavior. Recent findings suggest that such subliminal information has the potency to influence behavior in a way that is dependent on the observer’s current intentions. Here, we investigate whether conscious observation of stimulus relevance provides an incentive for the utilization of nonconscious stimuli. We manipulated the predictive power of directional cues to selectively affect the incentive to utilize them for a subsequent target detection task. Central arrow cues rendered invisible by interocular suppression elicited a facilitatory cuing effect, but only when intermixed with visible arrow cues that were highly predictive with respect to (i.e., 80 % congruent with) the subsequent target location. When the visible cues were nonpredictive (50 % congruent), no subliminal cuing effect was found. An analysis of learning effects corroborates these findings; Cuing effects elicited by both visible and invisible cues increased over the course of the experiment, but only when intermixed visible cues were highly predictive. In a second experiment, we demonstrated that the intrinsic relevance of invisible cues (either 50 % or 100 % congruent) has no effect on the utilization of visible cues. We conclude that conscious perception is required to make statistical inferences about the relevance of symbolic cues. Once statistical information is extracted consciously, it affects subsequent nonconscious processing in a way that fits the current context. Accordingly, one of the possible functions of consciousness could be to extract general rules out of the conscious information, to provide guidelines for future behavior.     

The influence of anxiety on the initial selection of emotional faces presented in binocular rivalry

Neurocognitive theories of anxiety predict that threat-related information can be evaluated before attentional selection, and can influence behaviour differentially in high anxious compared to low anxious individuals. We investigate this further by presenting emotional and neutral faces in an adapted binocular rivalry paradigm. We show that the initial selection of emotional faces presented in binocular rivalry is highly influenced by self-reported state and trait anxiety-level. Heightened anxiety was correlated with increased perception of angry and fearful faces, and decreased perception of happy expressions. These results are consistent with recent evidence of involuntary selection of threat in anxiety.     

The effects of anxiety upon attention allocation to affective stimuli

Pictures of emotionally aversive, neutral, and pleasant scenes were presented for 500 ms, followed by a probe presented in the same location (valid trials) or an alternate location (invalid trials) as the picture. Response-times to the probes were recorded in low (N=20) and high (N=27) trait anxious participants. Results revealed an overall negative cue validity effect of shorter reaction times (RTs) on invalid than valid trials, suggestive of an inhibition of return effect. Moreover, high trait anxious females showed a reduced negative cue validity effect for aversive pictures in comparison with neutral and pleasant pictures, suggestive of selective interference by the unpleasant material. By contrast, low trait anxious females showed an enhanced negative cue validity effect for aversive pictures relative to neutral and pleasant pictures, suggestive of attentional avoidance of the aversive content. The emotional content of picture cues did not significantly affect RTs in males, regardless of anxiety status. The results suggest that biased attention processes for aversive stimuli may contribute to the greater female propensity for anxiety disorders.     

All eyes on me?! Social anxiety and self-directed perception of eye gaze

To date, only little is known about the self-directed perception and processing of subtle gaze cues in social anxiety that might however contribute to excessive feelings of being looked at by others. Using a web-based approach, participants (n=174) were asked whether or not briefly (300 ms) presented facial expressions modulated in gaze direction (0°, 2°, 4°, 6°, 8°) and valence (angry, fearful, happy, neutral) were directed at them. The results demonstrate a positive, linear relationship between self-reported social anxiety and stronger self-directed perception of others' gaze directions, particularly for negative (angry, fearful) and neutral expressions. Furthermore, faster responding was found for gaze more clearly directed at socially anxious individuals (0°, 2°, and 4°) suggesting a tendency to avoid direct gaze. In sum, the results illustrate an altered self-directed perception of subtle gaze cues. The possibly amplifying effects of social stress on biased self-directed perception of eye gaze are discussed.     

An electrophysiological investigation into the automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious individuals

To examine the extent of automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious participants, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to emotional (fearful, happy) and neutral faces under varying task demands (low load, high load). Results showed that perceptual encoding of emotional faces, as reflected in P1 and early posterior negativity components, was unaffected by the availability of processing resources. In contrast, the postperceptual registration and storage of emotion-related information, as reflected in the late positive potential component at frontal locations, was influenced by the availability of processing resources, and this effect was further modulated by level of trait anxiety. Specifically, frontal ERP augmentations to emotional faces were eliminated in the more demanding task for low trait anxious participants, whereas ERP enhancements to emotional faces were unaffected by task load in high trait anxious participants. This result suggests greater automaticity in processing affective information in high trait anxious participants.     

Trait anxiety modulates supraliminal and subliminal threat: Brain potential evidence for early and late processing influences

Analysis of threat is thought to involve a “quick and dirty” stage in conjunction with slower processing that is more complete. We investigated both types of threat analysis by recording brain potentials in response to threat and neutral words. Personality testing was used to identify participants who were either high or low in trait anxiety (TA). An observed enhancement of occipital P1 potentials to threat words during an emotional Stroop task was interpreted as a signal of unconscious processing, since it was early, independent of whether word exposure was subliminal or supraliminal, and more prominent the higher the level of TA. Later positive potentials were also enhanced for threat versus neutral words, but the amplitude enhancement increased with higher TA only in the subliminal condition. These results suggest that unconscious analysis of threat is intensified in those prone to anxiety, as is a later stage of threat processing subject to dynamic interactions between automatic and strategic influences.     

Looking at threat-relevant stimuli: The role of anxiety and coping style

Abstract Results of numerous studies demonstrate that anxious subjects selectively attend to threat-related rather than to neutral stimuli. It has been argued that, as a result of this, anxious individuals more easily perceive and misattribute threatening stimuli in their environment, thereby creating a vicious circle of attention and anxiety. The evidence for this anxiety-linked attentional bias, however, is largely based on studies using subliminal or dichotic presentation of verbal stimuli. The present study sought to replicate these results by examining the relationship between anxiety and visual attention during prolonged exposure to threat-relevant (pictures of situations in a dental practice) and neutral (pictures of situations at a hairdresser salon) material with 45 women. No significant relationship emerged between dental trait anxiety and duration subjects directed gaze to the threat-relevant pictures. Neither self-reported state anxiety nor habitual coping style appeared to be significantly related to duration of visual attention for the threat-relevant pictures. Hence, no evidence was found supporting the hypothesis that high anxiety leads to a bias in attention towards emotionally threatening information. It is suggested that hypervigilance occurs in the early stages of the appraisal process.     

Vigilance for threat: effects of anxiety and defensiveness

Eysenck’s (1997) theory that attentional biases for threat vary as an interactive function of trait anxiety and defensiveness was tested using a visual probe task. Two stimulus exposure conditions were used to explore a secondary issue concerning attentional allocation over time. Results indicated that, among high trait anxious participants, only those with low levels of defensiveness showed vigilance for threatening faces presented for 500 ms. They also showed an attentional preference for neutral faces, relative to happy faces, irrespective of exposure condition. This pattern was reversed in high trait anxious participants with high levels of defensiveness, who showed an attentional bias towards happy faces (relative to neutral faces) under both exposure conditions. The findings are discussed in relation to their implications for (a) the significance of measures of defensiveness for the conceptualization of high trait anxious individuals, and (b) the status of anxiety-related biases at different stages of information processing.     

Social Anxiety and Attention away from Emotional Faces

A substantial literature indicates that anxiety is often associated with selective attention to threat cues. Socially anxious individuals are excessively concerned about negative evaluation by others. One might therefore predict that high social anxiety would be associated with selective attention to negative facial expressions. On the other hand, some recent models have suggested that social anxiety may be associated with reduced processing of external social cues. A modified dot-probe task was used to investigate face attention. High and low socially anxious individuals were presented with pairs of pictures, consisting of a face (positive, neutral, or negative) and a household object, under conditions of social-evaluative threat or no threat. The results indicated that, compared to low socially anxious individuals, high socially anxious individuals show an attentional bias away from emotional (positive and negative) faces but this effect is only observed under conditions of social-evaluative threat. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed.     

Effects of direct and averted gaze on the perception of facially communicated emotion

Research has largely neglected the effects of gaze direction cues on the perception of facial expressions of emotion. It was hypothesized that when gaze direction matches the underlying behavioral intent (approach-avoidance) communicated by an emotional expression, the perception of that emotion would be enhanced (i.e., shared signal hypothesis). Specifically, the authors expected that (a) direct gaze would enhance the perception of approach-oriented emotions (anger and joy) and (b) averted eye gaze would enhance the perception of avoidance-oriented emotions (fear and sadness). Three studies supported this hypothesis. Study 1 examined emotional trait attributions made to neutral faces. Study 2 examined ratings of ambiguous facial blends of anger and fear. Study 3 examined the influence of gaze on the perception of highly prototypical expressions.     

Impact of fearful expression on danger processing: The influence of the level of trait anxiety

Threat estimation is crucial for the adaptation of behavior to a dangerous situation. In anxiety, a bias to threat has been described as a core feature. Therefore, the sensitivity for threatening information in anxious individuals may have consequences for danger estimation. In this study, we used the affective priming paradigm to test the assumption that fearful expressions would facilitate danger detection in natural scenes in anxious individuals. Twenty-three high trait anxious individuals and 22 low trait anxious individuals participated in the study. They had to detect the potential threat of a target scene (neutral or threatening) following neutral or fearful face primes. High trait anxious participants detected threat more rapidly than low trait anxious participants, consistent with previous reports of emotional hypervigilance in anxiety. Furthermore, this effect was enhanced when the target scene followed a fearful expression: Only in anxious participants were reaction times shorter to detect danger following a fearful prime than a neutral prime. Our results tend to show that in anxiety, the hypervigilance to threat may be of an important value such as increasing the detection of a subsequent potential danger. Implication of attentional processes and attentional control is discussed.     

The symptom perception hypothesis revised: depression and anxiety play different roles in concurrent and retrospective physical symptom reporting

According to the classic symptom perception hypothesis (Costa & McCrae, 1987; Watson & Pennebaker, 1989), the global predisposition to frequently experience a variety of negative emotions-that is, neuroticism (N) or trait negative affectivity (NA)-is associated with inflated physical symptom reporting. We tested a revision of this hypothesis, which posits distinctive roles for depression and anxiety in the physical symptom experience. Three studies tested predictions from the revised symptom perception hypothesis: (a) that depressive affect should be related to inflated retrospective physical symptom reports and (b) that anxious affect should be related to inflated concurrent, or momentary, physical symptom reports. Study 1 assessed the relations among N/NA, depressive affect, and recall of physical symptoms experienced in the previous 3 weeks. Depressive affect was uniquely and positively associated with recalling more symptoms. When entered with depressive affect in multiple regression analyses, neuroticism was not associated with level of symptoms recalled. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to anxious, depressed, angry, happy, or neutral mood inductions and then reported about concurrent symptom experience. Participants in the anxious mood condition reported significantly more concurrent physical symptoms than did those in the other 4 conditions. In Study 3, anxious, depressed, or neutral mood was induced, followed by assessment of both concurrent and retrospective physical symptoms. Those assigned to the anxious mood induction reported more concurrent symptoms, while those in the depressed mood condition reported having experienced more symptoms in the past. These findings are consistent with the idea that encoding and retrieval processes, which are differentially associated with anxious versus depressed affect, influence different aspects of physical symptom reporting. The results have implications for self-diagnosis, medical treatment-seeking, and care, and potential insights about other complex social and interpersonal behaviors are discussed.     

Accuracy of respiratory symptom perception in persons with high and low negative affectivity

Accuracy of respiratory symptom perception was investigated in different contexts in participants (N = 56) scoring high or low for negative affectivity (NA). Within subject-correlations were calculated between minute ventilation (frequency per minute × tidal volume) and the subjective symptom ‘faster and/or deeper breathing’ across 10 subsequent breathing trials of 2?min with varying air mixtures, containing fresh or foul smelling odours and/or 5.5% CO₂. Half the participants were given a positive information frame for the sensations (‘some air mixtures may induce a pleasantly arousing feeling, like when being in love’), whereas the other half was given a negative frame (‘some air mixtures may induce feelings of being anxious and distressed’). Interoceptive accuracy was overall fairly high (r = 0.56–0.74), but it dropped considerably (r = 0.27), when bodily sensations were induced in high NA persons in a negative information frame (interaction, p < 0.005). Interoceptive accuracy appears low when persons with high NA are in situations characterised by negative affective cues.     

Anxiety, conscious awareness and change detection

Attentional scanning was studied in anxious and non-anxious participants, using a modified change detection paradigm. Participants detected changes in pairs of emotional scenes separated by two task irrelevant slides, which contained an emotionally valenced scene (the 'distractor scene') and a visual mask. In agreement with attentional control theory, change detection latencies were slower overall for anxious participants. Change detection in anxious, but not non-anxious, participants was influenced by the emotional valence and exposure duration of distractor scenes. When negative distractor scenes were presented at subliminal exposure durations, anxious participants detected changes more rapidly than when supraliminal negative scenes or subliminal positive scenes were presented. We propose that for anxious participants, subliminal presentation of emotionally negative distractor scenes stimulated attention into a dynamic state in the absence of attentional engagement. Presentation of the same scenes at longer exposure times was accompanied by conscious awareness, attentional engagement, and slower change detection.