Influence of Perceptual and Conceptual Information on Fear Generalization: A Behavioral and Event-Related Potential Study
Autor: | Haoran Dou, Jinxia Wang, Tao Xie, Mei E, Qi Wu, Yi Lei |
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Rok vydání: | 2021 |
Předmět: |
Brain activity and meditation
Cognitive Neuroscience media_common.quotation_subject education 05 social sciences Potential effect 050105 experimental psychology N400 03 medical and health sciences Behavioral Neuroscience 0302 clinical medicine Event-related potential Generalization (learning) Perception Healthy volunteers medicine Anxiety 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences medicine.symptom Psychology 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Cognitive psychology media_common |
Zdroj: | Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. 21:1054-1065 |
ISSN: | 1531-135X 1530-7026 |
Popis: | Learned fear can be generalized through both perceptual and conceptual information. This study investigated how perceptual and conceptual similarities influence this generalization process. Twenty-three healthy volunteers completed a fear-generalization test as brain activity was recorded in the form of event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants were exposed to a de novo fear acquisition paradigm with four categories of conditioned stimuli (CS): two conceptual cues (animals and furniture); and two perceptual cues (blue and purple shapes). Animals (C+) and purple shapes (P+) were paired with the unconditioned stimulus (US), whereas furniture (C-) and blue shapes (P-) never were. The generalized stimuli were thus blue animals (C+P+, determined danger), blue furniture (C-P+, perceptual danger), purple animals (C+P-, conceptual danger), and purple furniture (C-P-, determined safe). We found that perceptual cues elicited larger fear responses and shorter reaction times than did conceptual cues during fear acquisition. This suggests that a perceptually related pathway might evoke greater fear than a conceptually based route. During generalization, participants were more afraid of C+ exemplars than of C- exemplars. Furthermore, C+ trials elicited greater N400 amplitudes. Thus, participants appear able to use conceptually based cues to infer the value of the current stimuli. Additionally, compared with C+ exemplars, we found an enhanced late positive potential effect in response to C- exemplars, which seems to reflect a late inhibitory process and might index safety learning. These findings may offer new insights into the pathological mechanism of anxiety disorders. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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