The impact of induced anxiety on affective response inhibition.
R Soc Open Sci
; 4(6): 170084, 2017 Jun.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28680667
ABSTRACT
Studying the effects of experimentally induced anxiety in healthy volunteers may increase our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning anxiety disorders. Experimentally induced stress (via threat of unpredictable shock) improves accuracy at withholding a response on the sustained attention to response task (SART), and in separate studies improves accuracy to classify fearful faces, creating an affective bias. Integrating these findings, participants at two public science engagement events (n = 46, n = 55) were recruited to explore the effects of experimentally induced stress on an affective version of the SART. We hypothesized that we would see an improved accuracy at withholding a response to affectively congruent stimuli (i.e. increased accuracy at withholding a response to fearful 'no-go' distractors) under threat of shock. Induced anxiety slowed reaction time, and at the second event quicker responses were made to fearful stimuli. However, we did not observe improved inhibition overall during induced anxiety, and there was no evidence to suggest an interaction between induced anxiety and stimulus valence on response accuracy. Indeed Bayesian analysis provided decisive evidence against this hypothesis. We suggest that the presence of emotional stimuli might make the safe condition more anxiogenic, reducing the differential between conditions and knocking out any threat-potentiated improvement.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Revista:
R Soc Open Sci
Ano de publicação:
2017
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Reino Unido