Reinforcement learning and the reward positivity with aversive outcomes.

The reinforcement learning (RL) theory of the reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential (ERP) component that measures reward responsivity, suggests that the RewP should be largest when positive outcomes are unexpected and has been supported by work using appetitive outcomes (e.g., money). However, the RewP can also be elicited by the absence of aversive outcomes (e.g., shock). The limited work to-date that has manipulated expectancy while using aversive outcomes has not supported the predictions of RL theory. Nonetheless, this work has been difficult to reconcile with the appetitive literature because the RewP was not observed as a reward signal in these studies, which used passive tasks that did not involve participant choice. Here, we tested the predictions of the RL theory by manipulating expectancy in an active/choice-based threat-of-shock doors task that was previously found to elicit the RewP as a reward signal. Moreover, we used principal components analysis to isolate the RewP from overlapping ERP components. Eighty participants viewed pairs of doors surrounded by a red or green border; shock delivery was expected (80%) following red-bordered doors and unexpected (20%) following green-bordered doors. The RewP was observed as a reward signal (i.e., no shock > shock) that was not potentiated for unexpected feedback. In addition, the RewP was larger overall for unexpected (vs expected) feedback. Therefore, the RewP appears to reflect the additive (not interactive) effects of reward and expectancy, challenging the RL theory of the RewP, at least when reward is defined as the absence of an aversive outcome.

Triarchic psychopathy and affective picture processing: An event-related potential study.

Psychopathy and its precursors appear to be associated with abnormal affective response. For example, individuals high in psychopathy show reduced psychophysiological response to unpleasant stimuli, which might explain low levels of empathy in psychopathic individuals, and their pursuit of individual goals without regard for others' wellbeing. In keeping with the notion that psychopathology is best represented on a continuum, the triarchic model suggests that psychopathy is characterized by elevations on three traits: boldness, meanness and disinhibition. Understanding how these traits relate to psychophysiological response to emotional stimuli would help validate the triarchic model, while also bridging to other psychopathological spectra (e.g., internalizing psychopathology, which is characterized by low boldness). Here, N = 123 young adults passively viewed unpleasant, pleasant and neutral pictures while subjective and electrocortical response were recorded. Controlling for the other triarchic traits, individuals with higher self-reported meanness had smaller late positive potentials (LPPs) to both pleasant and unpleasant pictures, whereas individuals higher in boldness had larger LPPs to unpleasant pictures. In addition, those higher in meanness rated unpleasant pictures as more pleasant and less emotionally arousing. Disinhibition was not associated with the LPP or ratings. Meanness appears to drive blunted response to unpleasant pictures that has previously been observed among those high on psychopathy, and may also be associated with reduced engagement with generic pleasant stimuli. Moreover, results converge with prior work on other traits of transdiagnostic relevance (e.g., extraversion), as well as internalizing symptoms, providing a bridge between psychopathy and other forms of psychopathology.

A Neurobiological Profile Underlying Comorbidity Load and Prospective Increases in Dysphoria in a Focal Fear Sample.

BACKGROUND: Knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying increased disease burden in anxiety disorders that is unaccounted for by individual categorical diagnoses could lead to improved clinical care. Here, we tested the utility of a joint functional magnetic resonance imaging-electroencephalography neurobiological profile characterized by overvaluation of negative stimuli (amygdala) in combination with blunted elaborated processing of these same stimuli (the late positive potential [LPP], an event-related potential) in predicting increased psychopathology across a 2-year period in people with anxiety disorders. METHODS: One hundred ten participants (64 female, 45 male, 1 other) including 78 participants with phobias who varied in the extent of their internalizing comorbidity and 32 participants who were free from psychopathology viewed negative and neutral pictures during separate functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen level-dependent and electroencephalogram recordings. Dysphoria was assessed at baseline and 2 years later. RESULTS: Participants with both heightened amygdala activation and blunted LPPs to negative pictures showed the greatest increases in dysphoria 2 years later. Cross-sectionally, participants with higher comorbidity load (≥2 additional diagnoses, n = 34) showed increased amygdala activation to negative pictures compared with participants with lower comorbidity load (≤1 additional diagnosis, n = 44) and compared with participants free from psychopathology. In addition, high comorbid participants showed reduced LPPs to negative pictures compared with low comorbid participants. CONCLUSIONS: Heightened amygdala in response to negative stimuli in combination with blunted LPPs could indicate overvaluation of threatening stimuli in the absence of elaborated processing that might otherwise help regulate threat responding. This brain profile could underlie the worsening and maintenance of internalizing psychopathology over time.

Data Quality and Study Compliance Among College Students Across 2 Recruitment Sources: Two Study Investigation.

BACKGROUND: Models of satisficing suggest that study participants may not fully process survey items and provide accurate responses when survey burden is higher and when participant motivation is lower. Participants who do not fully process survey instructions can reduce a study's power and hinder generalizability. Common concerns among researchers using self-report measures are data quality and participant compliance. Similarly, attrition can hurt the power and generalizability of a study. OBJECTIVE: Given that college students comprise most samples in psychological studies, especially examinations of student issues and psychological health, it is critical to understand how college student recruitment sources impact data quality (operationalized as attention check items with directive instructions and correct answers) and retention (operationalized as the completion of follow-up surveys over time). This examination aimed to examine the following: whether data quality varies across recruitment sources, whether study retention varies across recruitment sources, the impact of data quality on study variable associations, the impact of data quality on measures of internal consistency, and whether the demographic qualities of participants significantly vary across those who failed attention checks versus those who did not. METHODS: This examination was a follow-up analysis of 2 previously published studies to explore data quality and study compliance. Study 1 was a cross-sectional, web-based survey examining college stressors and psychological health (282/407, 69.3% female; 230/407, 56.5% White, 113/407, 27.8% Black; mean age 22.65, SD 6.73 years). Study 2 was a longitudinal college drinking intervention trial with an in-person baseline session and 2 web-based follow-up surveys (378/528, 71.6% female; 213/528, 40.3% White, 277/528, 52.5% Black; mean age 19.85, SD 1.65 years). Attention checks were included in both studies to assess data quality. Participants for both studies were recruited from a psychology participation pool (a pull-in method; for course credit) and the general student body (a push-out method; for monetary payment or raffle entry). RESULTS: A greater proportion of participants recruited through the psychology pool failed attention checks in both studies, suggesting poorer data quality. The psychology pool was also associated with lower retention rates over time. After screening out those who failed attention checks, some correlations among the study variables were stronger, some were weaker, and some were fairly similar, potentially suggesting bias introduced by including these participants. Differences among the indicators of internal consistency for the study measures were negligible. Finally, attention check failure was not significantly associated with most demographic characteristics but varied across some racial identities. This suggests that filtering out data from participants who failed attention checks may not limit sample diversity. CONCLUSIONS: Investigators conducting college student research should carefully consider recruitment and include attention checks or other means of detecting poor quality data. Recommendations for researchers are discussed.

Generalization of reappraisal to novel negative stimuli as evidenced by the LPP.

Cognitive reappraisal is a well-studied emotion regulation technique that involves changing the meaning of stimuli. To be useful in everyday life, reappraisal's effects would ideally generalize from previously reappraised stimuli to novel, but similar stimuli, saving individuals from needing to generate novel interpretations for similar stimuli. Here, 41 participants were asked to use reappraisal to down-regulate their response to negative pictures from one category (e.g., snakes), and to view negative pictures from another category (e.g., guns) as well as neutral pictures (e.g., plants). In a subsequent task, participants passively viewed novel pictures from all three categories (e.g., snakes, guns, and plants). EEG and subjective ratings of valence and arousal were collected in both tasks. In the reappraisal task, we did not find an effect of reappraisal on the LPP or arousal ratings, but reappraisal reduced ratings of picture unpleasantness. In the second task, negative pictures from the previously reappraised category elicited smaller LPPs than negative pictures from the previously viewed category, though there was no evidence that reappraisal generalized to subjective ratings of pictures. Therefore, at the electrocortical level, cognitive reappraisal may generalize to similar but novel stimuli encountered outside of the reappraisal context. Moreover, meaning change might be more effective in modulating electrocortical response following a delay and in the absence of deliberate attempts to down-regulate emotional response. Nonetheless, reappraisal's effects appear to differ across levels of affective response when similar stimuli are encountered in the absence of willful attempts at reappraisal.

Group differences in agency modulate error monitoring.

Mistakes can lead to aversive outcomes. Error monitoring may help prevent mistakes, but it might be maladaptive for individuals who lack control over aversive outcomes, as it consumes cognitive processing resources that could be allocated elsewhere. Here, we examined the effect of agency (i.e., control over punishment) on error monitoring using the error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential measure of error monitoring and error rate. Ninety unselected participants performed a flanker task in which they were shocked according to their own errors (controllable punishment, n = 47) or were shocked in accordance with another participant's errors (uncontrollable punishment, n = 43). Participants without agency over punishment showed smaller ERNs and higher error rates compared with participants with agency. Furthermore, punishment only reduced error rates for participants with agency. Together, these results provide the first experimental evidence that agency modulates error monitoring and suggest an adaptive process in which error monitoring is increased/decreased depending on its utility.

The controllability of aversive and neutral pictures: an event-related potential study.

Control over physically aversive stimuli may reduce stress, arousal and physiological responses to these stimuli. Nonetheless, avoidance of emotionally aversive stimuli/excessive attempts to control negative emotion might alternatively increase the salience of these stimuli. Here, we used a novel paradigm to examine the effect of controllability on the processing of aversive and neutral pictures (using the late positive potential, LPP) and response uncertainty (using the post-imperative negative variation, PINV). Participants (n = 48) were told that they could press a button to terminate the presentation of an aversive or neutral picture, but this was only true during some blocks of the experiment and not others. Results showed that the LPP was larger for control compared to no control blocks and that this was driven by larger LPPs to aversive pictures during the first control block, but only for participants who had started the task in a no control block. Therefore, knowing that aversive stimuli might not always be controllable (i.e., a prior experience of uncontrollability) appears to increase the motivational salience of these stimuli once control becomes possible. In addition, uncontrollability increased both the early and late PINV, and the late PINV was larger for the second compared to the first control block. As such, the current study provides the first evidence that the PINV can be elicited using aversive and neutral pictures and suggests functional differentiation between the early and late portions of the PINV. Results support the utility of this novel paradigm for examining control over emotional stimuli.

Comorbid anxiety and depression: Opposing effects on the electrocortical processing of negative imagery in a focal fear sample.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety and depression are highly comorbid and share clinical characteristics, such as high levels of negative emotion. Attention toward negative stimuli in anxiety and depression has been studied primarily using negative pictures. Yet, negative mental imagery-that is, mental representations of imagined negative events or stimuli-might more closely mirror patient experience. METHODS: The current study presents the first examination of neural response to negative imagery in 57 adults (39 female) who all shared a common "focal fear" diagnosis (i.e., specific phobia or performance-only social anxiety disorder), but varied in levels of comorbid anxiety and depression. After listening to standardized descriptions of negative and neutral scenes, participants imagined these scenes as vividly as possible. Associations between categorical and continuous measures of depression, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and social anxiety disorder with electrocortical and subjective responses to negative imagery were assessed. RESULTS: Individuals who were more depressed showed reduced electrocortical processing of negative imagery, whereas those with GAD showed increased electrocortical processing of negative imagery-but only when controlling for depression. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of depression rated negative imagery as less negative and those with greater social anxiety symptoms rated negative imagery more negatively. CONCLUSIONS: Depression and GAD are characterized by opposing electrocortical response to negative imagery; moreover, depression may suppress GAD-related increases in the electrocortical processing of negative imagery. Results highlight distinctions between different dimensions of distress-based psychopathology, and reveal the unique and complex contribution of comorbid depression to affective response in anxiety.

Working memory load reduces the electrocortical processing of positive pictures.

To date, the emotion regulation literature has focused primarily on the down-regulation of negative emotion, with far fewer studies interrogating the mechanisms at work in positive emotion regulation. This body of work has suggested that nonaffective mechanisms, such as cognitive load have a role to play in reducing emotional response. For example, the late positive potential (LPP), which tracks attention to salient stimuli, is reduced when task-irrelevant negative and neutral stimuli are presented under high compared with low working memory load. Using positive stimuli, working memory load has been shown to reduce the LPP elicited by positive words and faces but has not previously been shown to modulate the LPP elicited by positive scenes. Emotional scenes are the predominant type of stimuli used in the broader emotion regulation literature, are more arousing than faces, and have been shown to more strongly modulate the LPP. Here, 41 participants performed a working memory task interspersed with the presentation of positive and neutral scenes, while electroencephalography was recorded. Results showed that the LPP was increased for positive compared with neutral pictures and reduced on high-load compared to low-load trials. Working memory performance was worse on high-load compared with low-load trials, although it was not significantly correlated with the LPP, and picture type did not affect working memory performance. Results bridge to the willful emotion regulation literature to increase understanding of the mechanisms underlying positive emotion regulation, which has been relatively unexamined.

Intolerance of uncertainty, depression and the error-related negativity.

Prior work has yielded contradictory findings regarding the association between depression and the error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential thought to reflect individual variation in sensitivity to internal threat (i.e., errors), and the error positivity (Pe), which is thought to reflect more elaborative, conscious processing of errors. One possibility is that variation in transdiagnostic dimensional constructs related to threat processing might help explain inconsistencies in the relationship between depression and the ERN and Pe. Here, we used a large, unselected sample (N = 100) to determine whether variation in intolerance of uncertainty (IU), a transdiagnostic trait dimension that is implicated in both depression and anxiety, might moderate associations between depressive symptomatology and error processing. Results showed that greater levels of depressive symptomatology were associated with larger ΔERNs (error minus correct trials) when IU was low, but were unrelated to ΔERN when IU was high; main effects of depression and IU on ΔERN were not observed. The Pe was not associated with IU or depression. Additionally, IU, but not depression, was associated with faster response times on error and correct trials. Overall, results suggest that error processing may differ for individuals with elevated depression with versus without elevated IU. Moreover, prior failures to observe associations between depression and the ERN might stem from failure to account for related transdiagnostic constructs.

Worry as a mediator between psychosocial stressors and emotional sequelae: Moderation by contrast avoidance.

BACKGROUND: Worry is the core feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), which is prevalent among emerging adults. The contrast avoidance model proposes that individuals with GAD use worry to avoid negative emotional contrasts by maintaining a state of negative affect. Research suggests worry in response to stressors increases anxiety, but more research is needed to examine depression as an outcome and the predictions of contrast avoidance in the context of multiple stressor subtypes. The current study examined whether worry may be associated with increased symptoms of anxiety and depression, regardless of stressors, due to the use of worry as an avoidance strategy, moderating these associations. METHODS: 367 undergraduate college students from a medium-sized, public university completed self-report questionnaires online. RESULTS: Worry significantly mediated the associations from academic stressors and social stressors to symptoms of anxiety and depression. Contrast avoidance significantly moderated associations between academic stressors and worry as well as worry and anxiety. For those high in contrast avoidance, worry was relatively high regardless of academic stressors; for those low in contrast avoidance, students with fewer academic stressors reported less worry. LIMITATIONS: The present study relied on self-report. In addition, the cross-sectional design limits the ability to draw conclusions about temporal relations. CONCLUSIONS: Contrast avoidance elevated worry regardless of academic stressors, and strengthened the association between worry and anxiety but not worry and depression. Individuals who experience high levels of contrast avoidance may benefit from cognitive interventions focusing on reducing beliefs about the perceived benefits of worry.

Intolerance of uncertainty and threat generalization: A replication and extension.

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a transdiagnostic risk factor for internalizing disorders. Prior work has found that IU may be associated with either increased reactivity to threat or, alternatively, with decreased differential responding between threat and nonthreat/safety cues (i.e., threat generalization). For example, work by Morriss, Macdonald, & van Reekum  (2016) found that higher IU was associated with increased threat generalization during acquisition (using skin conductance response (SCR)), as well as less differentiation between acquisition and extinction (using subjective uneasiness ratings). Here, three labs attempted direct and conceptual replications of Morriss, Macdonald, et al. (2016). Results showed that the direct replication failed, despite being conducted at the same lab site as the original study; moreover, in contrast to Morriss, Macdonald, et al. (2016), the direct replication found that higher IU was associated with greater SCR discrimination between threat and safety cues (across acquisition and extinction), as well as greater differences in uneasiness ratings between acquisition and extinction. Nonetheless, in the conceptual replications, higher IU was associated with greater threat generalization, as well as less discrimination between acquisition and extinction, as measured using SCR. Higher IU was also associated with larger late positive potentials to threat versus safety cues during extinction-results that mirror those observed by Morriss, Macdonald, et al. (2016) using SCR. Results are discussed with regards to the challenge involved in defining a successful replication attempt, the benefits of collaborative replication and the use and reliability of multiple measures.

Implementation of a brief anxiety assessment and evaluation in a Department of Veterans Affairs geriatric primary care clinic.

Anxiety disorders are common and debilitating in older individuals, yet anxiety is often not formally assessed in primary care. We conducted a quality improvement project to examine the feasibility of implementing a brief anxiety assessment, the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), in a Department of Veterans Affairs geriatric primary care clinic. We compared the GAI with a depression assessment, the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). Fifty older Veterans (mean = 78.5 +/- 7.4 yr) completed the GAI and GDS-15. Mean completion time and feedback to patients was brief (6.20 min; n = 10). Good internal consistency (alpha = 0.82) was found for GAI scores. Patients with psychiatric diagnoses obtained significantly higher GAI scores (mean = 4.73 +/- 1.15) compared with patients without psychiatric diagnoses (mean = 1.15 +/- 1.86, t(11.46) = -3.10, p = 0.01). Findings suggest that the GAI is acceptable to patients but may not be suitable for differentiating anxiety symptoms or disorders from depression. Interdisciplinary team members continued to implement the GAI after project completion to screen for and track anxiety symptoms in our geriatric primary care patients. Detecting anxiety with the GAI had the benefit of allowing providers to initiate conversations about available treatments and track symptoms as part of noting treatment progress.

Gender, health ambiguity, and depression among survivors of first stroke: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between health ambiguity and depressive symptoms among stroke survivors and whether survivor gender moderates this association. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey study. SETTING: General community. PARTICIPANTS: Survivors of first stroke (N=36) recruited through provider referral, support groups, and print and Web-based sources. INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Depressive symptoms as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. RESULTS: Health ambiguity (ß=.984, P<.001), gender (ß=1.010, P<.01), and the interaction of the 2 variables (ß=-1.269, P<.05) were significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Simple slopes tests indicated that the association between health ambiguity and depressive symptoms was stronger for male versus female survivors. CONCLUSIONS: Gender and health ambiguity impact survivor depressive symptoms, independently and in conjunction with one another. Results are promising, and further research with larger samples and more comprehensive statistical models is needed to confirm these findings.

Assessing visual performance with progressive addition lenses.

PURPOSE: As a result of lens design limitations, progressive addition lenses (PAL's) present a limited field of view for tasks at intermediate distances, such as with computers. To assess whether this limitation results in diminished visual performance, PAL's were compared with single-vision lenses in four different types of reading tasks in a computer workplace environment. METHODS: Adult subjects performed four computer-based reading tasks using both single-vision lenses and PAL's at an intermediate distance of 64 cm. RESULTS: Single-vision lenses performed significantly better than PAL's in one task, with a trend for better performance in another task. There was no difference in performance for the remaining two tasks. CONCLUSIONS: Visual performance tests that involved stimuli subtending the widest visual angles and demanded more fixational shifts were more sensitive in discerning performance differences between the lens designs. In general, PAL's showed marginally diminished performance compared with single-vision lenses, presumably due to their restricted intermediate channel.