The current registered report focused on the temporal dynamics of the relationship between expectancy and attention toward threat, to better understand the mechanisms underlying the prioritization of ...threat detection over expectancy. In the current event‐related potentials experiment, a‐priori expectancy was manipulated, and attention bias was measured, using a well‐validated paradigm. A visual search array was presented, with one of two targets: spiders (threatening) or birds (neutral). A verbal cue stating the likelihood of encountering a target preceded the array, creating congruent and incongruent trials. Following cue presentation, preparatory processes were examined using the contingent negative variation (CNV) component. Following target presentation, two components were measured: early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP), reflecting early and late stages of natural selective attention toward emotional stimuli, respectively. Behaviorally, spiders were found faster than birds, and congruency effects emerged for both targets. For the CNV, a non‐significant trend of more negative amplitudes following spider cues emerged. As expected, EPN and LPP amplitudes were larger for spider targets compared to bird targets. Data‐driven, exploratory, topographical analyses revealed different patterns of activation for bird cues compared to spider cues. Furthermore, 400–500 ms post‐target, a congruency effect was revealed only for bird targets. Together, these results demonstrate that while expectancy for spider appearance is evident in differential neural preparation, the actual appearance of spider target overrides this expectancy effect and only in later stages of processing does the cueing effect come again into play.
This study examined online expectancy and subsequent emotional attention to threat at early as well as late processing stages using event‐related potentials and topographical analyses. This comprehensive study can facilitate the development of better treatments aimed at reducing attention bias and anxiety/phobia symptoms by focusing on the manipulation of expectancies.
Anxiety and depression are distinct-albeit overlapping-psychiatric diseases, currently diagnosed by self-reported-symptoms. This research presents a new diagnostic methodology, which tests rigorously ...for differences in cognitive biases among subclinical anxious and depressed individuals. 125 participants were divided into four groups based on the levels of their anxiety and depression symptoms. A comprehensive behavioral test battery detected and quantified various cognitive-emotional biases. Advanced machine-learning tools, developed for this study, analyzed these results. These tools detect unique patterns that characterize anxiety versus depression to predict group membership. The prediction model for differentiating between symptomatic participants (i.e., high symptoms of depression, anxiety, or both) compared to the non-symptomatic control group revealed a 71.44% prediction accuracy for the former (sensitivity) and 70.78% for the latter (specificity). 68.07% and 74.18% prediction accuracy was obtained for a two-group model with high depression/anxiety, respectively. The analysis also disclosed which specific behavioral measures contributed to the prediction, pointing to key cognitive mechanisms in anxiety versus depression. These results lay the ground for improved diagnostic instruments and more effective and focused individually-based treatment.
Individuals with a tendency toward abnormally enhanced cardiovascular responses to stress are at greater risk of developing essential hypertension later in life. Accurate profiling of continuous ...blood pressure (BP) reactions in healthy populations is crucial for understanding normal and abnormal emotional reaction patterns. To this end, we examined the continuous time course of BP reactions to aversive pictures among healthy participants. In two experiments, we showed participants negative and neutral pictures while simultaneously measuring their continuous BP and heart rate (HR) reactions. In this study, BP reactions were analyzed continuously, in contrast to previous studies, in which BP responses were averaged across blocks. To compare time points along a temporal continuum, we applied a multi‐level B‐spline model, which is innovative in the context of BP analysis. Additionally, HR was similarly analyzed in order to examine its correlation with BP. Both experiments revealed a similar pattern of BP reactivity and association with HR. In line with previous studies, a decline in BP and HR levels was found in response to negative pictures compared to neutral pictures. In addition, in both conditions, we found an unexpected elevation of BP toward the end of the stimuli exposure period. These findings may be explained by the recruitment of attention resources in the presence of negative stimuli, which is alleviated toward the end of the stimulation. This study highlights the importance of continuous measurement and analysis for characterizing the time course of BP reactivity to emotional stimuli.
Accurate profiling of continuous blood pressure (BP) reactions in healthy populations is crucial for diagnosing individuals exhibiting abnormal reaction patterns. To this end, we examined the continuous BP reactions to negative emotional stimuli among healthy participants in two separate experiments differing in their temporal properties. The use of continuous measurement and analysis allowed for detailed characterization of the time course of BP reactivity. Such knowledge is of high theoretical and clinical importance and can facilitate future comparisons of BP responses between healthy individuals and clinical and sub‐clinical populations, as well as allow assessment of the efficiency of different treatments.
Objectives
People regulate their interpersonal space appropriately to obtain a comfortable distance for interacting with others. Socially anxious individuals are especially prone to discomfort from ...and fear of physical closeness, leading them to prefer a greater interpersonal distance from others. Previous studies also indicate that fear can enhance the threat‐related elements of a threatening stimulus. For example, spider phobia is associated with estimating spiders as bigger and faster than they actually are. Nonetheless, it is still unclear whether the preference of those with social anxiety disorder (SAD) to maintain greater distance from others is associated with biased estimations of interpersonal distance.
Materials and Methods
A total of 87 participants (44 clinically diagnosed with SAD and 43 control) performed validated computerized and ecological tasks in a real‐life setting while social space estimations and preferences were measured.
Results
Participants with SAD felt comfortable when maintaining a greater distance from unfamiliar others compared to the control group and estimated unfamiliar others to be closer to them than they actually were. Moreover, the estimation bias predicted their preferred distance from strangers, indicating a strong association between estimation bias severity and actual approach‐avoidance behavior.
Conclusion
Our findings indicate that distance estimation bias underlies avoidance behavior in SAD, suggesting the involvement of a new cognitive mechanism in personal space regulation.
Recent years have witnessed the emergence of powerful new tools for assaying the brain and a remarkable acceleration of research focused on the interplay of emotion and cognition. This work has begun ...to yield new insights into fundamental questions about the nature of the mind and important clues about the origins of mental illness. In particular, this research demonstrates that stress, anxiety, and other kinds of emotion can profoundly influence key elements of cognition, including selective attention, working memory, and cognitive control. Often, this influence persists beyond the duration of transient emotional challenges, partially reflecting the slower molecular dynamics of catecholamine and hormonal neurochemistry. In turn, circuits involved in attention, executive control, and working memory contribute to the regulation of emotion. The distinction between the 'emotional' and the 'cognitive' brain is fuzzy and context-dependent. Indeed, there is compelling evidence that brain territories and psychological processes commonly associated with cognition, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and working memory, play a central role in emotion. Furthermore, putatively emotional and cognitive regions influence one another via a complex web of connections in ways that jointly contribute to adaptive and maladaptive behavior. This work demonstrates that emotion and cognition are deeply interwoven in the fabric of the brain, suggesting that widely held beliefs about the key constituents of 'the emotional brain' and 'the cognitive brain' are fundamentally flawed. We conclude by outlining several strategies for enhancing future research. Developing a deeper understanding of the emotional-cognitive brain is important, not just for understanding the mind but also for elucidating the root causes of its disorders.
Introduction
Attention bias plays an important role in specific fears and phobias. Previous studies revealed that
a-priori
expectancies affect attention toward neutral stimuli but not threatening ...stimuli. The aim of the current study was to test whether this selective influence of expectancies on attention is specific to phylogenetic threat (i.e., spiders) or whether it can be generalized to ontogenetic threat (i.e., guns). Correspondingly, we directly compared expectancy effects on attentional allocation to phylogenetically vs. ontogenetically threatening stimuli.
Method
Expectancies were manipulated by presenting a cue indicating the likelihood of the appearance of a deviant picture in a visual search array. The array included eight distractors and one neutral (phone/bird) or threatening (gun/spider) deviant picture. In a comprehensive design, we examined the effects of stimulus type (phylogenetic/ontogenetic) and visual background (white and sterile/complex and ecological). Individual differences such as intolerance of uncertainty and spider fear were also measured.
Results
Results showed that attention bias toward spiders does not extend to threatening ontogenetic stimuli (i.e., guns). Our previous findings on attention bias toward spiders were replicated and a small to medium positive correlation was found between reaction time to bird targets and pre-existing fear of spider levels. Cues were used to detect threatening as well as neutral targets on both background types, except for spider targets on a complex background, replicating previous results. A small to medium positive correlation was also found between fear of spiders and intolerance of uncertainty.
Discussion
Together, these results suggest that expectancy and attentional processes may differ between ontogenetic and phylogenetic threat. Importantly, the effects of expectancy on attentional allocation depend on an interaction between the type of threat (ontogenetic/phylogenetic), visual factors, and individual differences.
•Emotion-attention interactions impact many aspects of daily life.•These interactions involve interplays between affective and executive brain systems.•Individual differences (age, sex, personality) ...can modulate emotion and attention.•Maladaptive emotion-attention interactions are common in affective disorders.•Training and interventions can optimize emotion-attention interactions.
Due to their ability to capture attention, emotional stimuli tend to benefit from enhanced perceptual processing, which can be helpful when such stimuli are task-relevant but hindering when they are task-irrelevant. Altered emotion-attention interactions have been associated with symptoms of affective disturbances, and emerging research focuses on improving emotion-attention interactions to prevent or treat affective disorders. In line with the Human Affectome Project’s emphasis on linguistic components, we also analyzed the language used to describe attention-related aspects of emotion, and highlighted terms related to domains such as conscious awareness, motivational effects of attention, social attention, and emotion regulation. These terms were discussed within a broader review of available evidence regarding the neural correlates of (1) Emotion-Attention Interactions in Perception, (2) Emotion-Attention Interactions in Learning and Memory, (3) Individual Differences in Emotion-Attention Interactions, and (4) Training and Interventions to Optimize Emotion-Attention Interactions. This comprehensive approach enabled an integrative overview of the current knowledge regarding the mechanisms of emotion-attention interactions at multiple levels of analysis, and identification of emerging directions for future investigations.
The unique role of the EEG alpha rhythm in different states of cortical activity is still debated. The main theories regarding alpha function posit either sensory processing or attention allocation ...as the main processes governing its modulation. Closing and opening eyes, a well‐known manipulation of the alpha rhythm, could be regarded as attention allocation from inward to outward focus though during light is also accompanied by visual change. To disentangle the effects of attention allocation and sensory visual input on alpha modulation, 14 healthy subjects were asked to open and close their eyes during conditions of light and of complete darkness while simultaneous recordings of EEG and fMRI were acquired. Thus, during complete darkness the eyes‐open condition is not related to visual input but only to attention allocation, allowing direct examination of its role in alpha modulation. A data‐driven ridge regression classifier was applied to the EEG data in order to ascertain the contribution of the alpha rhythm to eyes‐open/eyes‐closed inference in both lighting conditions. Classifier results revealed significant alpha contribution during both light and dark conditions, suggesting that alpha rhythm modulation is closely linked to the change in the direction of attention regardless of the presence of visual sensory input. Furthermore, fMRI activation maps derived from an alpha modulation time‐course during the complete darkness condition exhibited a right frontal cortical network associated with attention allocation. These findings support the importance of top‐down processes such as attention allocation to alpha rhythm modulation, possibly as a prerequisite to its known bottom‐up processing of sensory input.
In order to examine the effects of sensory processing vs. attention allocation on alpha rhythm modulation, this EEG‐fMRI study used eyes open\close paradigm in light and complete darkness conditions. Using A ridge regression classifier and selective fMRI activations we were able to show that the alpha rhythm modulation is closely linked to the change in the direction of attention regardless of the presence of visual sensory input. These findings support the importance of top down processes to alpha rhythm modulation possibly as a prerequisite to its known bottom up processing of sensory input.
Objectives: Recent models on emotional processing consider a major role for the pulvinar in the coordination of emotion processing; however, these models do not specify the type of cognitive ...mechanisms that the pulvinar may be subserving during emotional processing. In this opinion paper, we focus on the role of the different pulvinar subdivisions in emotion and attention. First, we review a number of neuropsychology studies and recent models that indicate that the medial nucleus of the pulvinar is critical for intact emotional processing. Then, we suggest that the role of the medial pulvinar in emotional processing is binding emotionally relevant features during working memory updating. Method: We carefully examined reports that describe different cognitive impairments following lesions to different pulvinar subdivisions. Results: By linking these detailed neuropsychology reports to recent neuroimaging findings, we show that lesions to specific parts of the pulvinar can dramatically affect attentional processes while leaving emotion processing spared. Conclusions: We suggest a comprehensive model that specifies the functional role of the different pulvinar subdivisions in emotion-attention interplay. We propose that the impairments in emotional processing following lesions to the medial pulvinar may be related to the role of this nucleus in emotionally relevant working memory updating. The aim of this model is to foster future research examining specific functions along the different anatomical pulvinar subdivisions.
Women show increased predisposition for certain psychiatric disorders, such as depression, that are associated with disturbances in the integration of emotion and cognition. While this suggests that ...sex hormones need to be considered as modulating factors in the regulation of emotion, we still lack a sound understanding of how the menstrual cycle impacts emotional states and cognitive function. Though signals for the influence of the menstrual cycle on the integration of emotion and cognition have appeared as secondary findings in numerous behavioral and neuroimaging studies, this has only very rarely been the primary research goal. This review summarizes evidence: (1) that the menstrual cycle modulates the integration of emotional and cognitive processing on a behavioral level, and (2) that this change in behavior can be associated with functional, molecular and structural changes in the brain during a specific menstrual cycle phase. The growing evidence for menstrual cycle-specific differences suggests a modulating role for sex hormones on the neural networks supporting the integration of emotional and cognitive information. It will further be discussed what methodological aspects need to be considered to capture the role of the menstrual cycle in the emotion-cognition interplay more systematically.
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