The Effect of Affective Context on Visuocortical Processing of Neutral Faces in Social Anxiety.
The Effect of Affective Context on Visuocortical Processing of Neutral Faces in Social Anxiety.
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DOI：
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01824
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Moscovitch DA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wieser MJ;Moscovitch DA
已经证明，言语上下文信息会改变模糊面孔（例如没有明显面部表情的面孔）的神经处理。在社交焦虑中，中性面孔可能由于其模棱两可的性质而对社交焦虑个体构成隐性威胁，但如果将这些中性面孔置于自我参照的负面环境中，则更是如此。因此，我们测量了对中性面孔的反应的事件相关大脑电位（ERP），这些面孔之前是情感言语信息（消极、中性、积极）。低社交焦虑（LSA；n = 23）和高社交焦虑（HSA；n = 21）的参与者被要求观察并评价各自面部的效价和唤醒度，同时记录连续脑电图。 ERP 分析显示，HSA 对面部的反应表现出升高的 P100 振幅，但通过减少 N170 振幅来减少面部的结构编码。一般来说，与中性面部表情相比，情感背景会导致消极的早期后消极性（EPN）增强。此外，与 LSA 相比，HSA 对消极情境中的面孔表现出增强的晚期正电位 (LPP)，而在 LSA 中，这种效应在积极情境中的面孔中被发现。此外，与 LSA 相比，HSA 将负面环境中的面孔评为更负面。这些结果表明，无论 HSA 中的背景如何，对中性面孔的警惕性都会增强，而结构编码似乎会减弱（回避）。有趣的是，持续处理（LPP）的后续组成部分表明，LSA 对积极情境中的面部表现出增强的视觉皮层处理（快乐偏差），而 HSA 中的消极情境面部似乎就是这种情况（威胁偏差）。最后，我们的结果进一步提供了新证据，表明自上而下的信息与个人焦虑水平的相互作用可以影响视觉感知的早期阶段。
It has been demonstrated that verbal context information alters the neural processing of ambiguous faces such as faces with no apparent facial expression. In social anxiety, neutral faces may be implicitly threatening for socially anxious individuals due to their ambiguous nature, but even more so if these neutral faces are put in self-referential negative contexts. Therefore, we measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in response to neutral faces which were preceded by affective verbal information (negative, neutral, positive). Participants with low social anxiety (LSA; n = 23) and high social anxiety (HSA; n = 21) were asked to watch and rate valence and arousal of the respective faces while continuous EEG was recorded. ERP analysis revealed that HSA showed elevated P100 amplitudes in response to faces, but reduced structural encoding of faces as indexed by reduced N170 amplitudes. In general, affective context led to an enhanced early posterior negativity (EPN) for negative compared to neutral facial expressions. Moreover, HSA compared to LSA showed enhanced late positive potentials (LPP) to negatively contextualized faces, whereas in LSA this effect was found for faces in positive contexts. Also, HSA rated faces in negative contexts as more negative compared to LSA. These results point at enhanced vigilance for neutral faces regardless of context in HSA, while structural encoding seems to be diminished (avoidance). Interestingly, later components of sustained processing (LPP) indicate that LSA show enhanced visuocortical processing for faces in positive contexts (happy bias), whereas this seems to be the case for negatively contextualized faces in HSA (threat bias). Finally, our results add further new evidence that top-down information in interaction with individual anxiety levels can influence early-stage aspects of visual perception.