Brief Exposure to Aversive Stimuli Impairs Visual Selective Attention
Brief Exposure to Aversive Stimuli Impairs Visual Selective Attention
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DOI：
10.1162/jocn_a_00768
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发表时间：
2015-06-01
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Jha, Amishi P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Paczynski, Martin;Burton, Adam M.;Jha, Amishi P.
尽管众所周知，压力会破坏复杂的认知功能，但人们对它如何影响视觉处理，特别是在视觉选择性注意方面知之甚少。在当前的研究中，我们使用从国际情感图片系统获取的高度厌恶的图像，在参与者执行视觉辨别任务时引发急性、低强度的压力。与之前的研究一致，我们发现对厌恶刺激的预期增加了 N170 的整体振幅，表明早期感觉增益增加。更重要的是，我们发现压力会扰乱视觉选择性注意力。而在无压力块中，当参与者关注面部而不是面部场景叠加图像中的场景时，面部敏感的 N170 的幅度更高；这种效应在压力下不存在。这是因为在压力下现场观察条件下 N170 振幅增加。我们将这些发现解释为即使是低强度的急性压力也会损害参与者过滤与任务无关信息的能力。我们讨论了我们的研究结果，即即使是短暂的低强度压力也可能对健康和临床人群产生不利影响。
Although it is well established that stress can disrupt complex cognitive functions, relatively little is known about how it influences visual processing, especially in terms of visual selective attention. In the current study, we used highly aversive images, taken from the International Affective Picture System, to induce acute, low-intensity stress while participants performed a visual discrimination task. Consistent with prior research, we found that anticipation of aversive stimuli increased overall amplitude of the N170, suggesting an increase in early sensory gain. More importantly, we found that stress disrupted visual selective attention. While in no-stress blocks, the amplitude of the face-sensitive N170 was higher when participants attended to faces rather than scenes in face-scene overlay images; this effect was absent under stress. This was because of an increase in N170 amplitude in the scene-attend condition under stress. We interpret these findings as suggesting that even low-intensity acute stress can impair participants' ability to filter out task-irrelevant information. We discuss our findings in relation to how even brief exposure to low-intensity stress may adversely impact both healthy and clinical populations.