PERCEPTION OF THREAT IN MILITARY VETERANS, CADETS, AND CIVILIANS

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中的一个 由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源。子项目和 研究者（PI）可能从另一个NIH来源获得了主要资金， 因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。所列机构为 研究中心，而研究中心不一定是研究者所在的机构。 退伍军人、诺维奇军校学员和米德尔伯里大学本科生将被招募参加一项关于威胁感知的研究。参与者将被要求观看图像并听取因其威胁内容而变化的刺激，同时记录眼球运动和大脑活动。听觉刺激将包括新奇和意外的声音。视觉刺激将包括穿着传统或非传统服装的中东男子的图像。将使用眼动追踪设备记录眼动测量结果，如注视持续时间、注视位置和注视持续时间，以评估视觉注意力中与威胁相关的差异。将使用事件相关电位（ERP）记录大脑中的电活动，ERP捕获大脑对特定视觉和听觉刺激的反应。这些数据将分析具有不同军事和战斗经验的参与者的大脑活动和眼动模式的差异。创伤后应激的临床测量也将与观看威胁刺激时的眼球运动和大脑活动的测量相关。本研究的目的是了解学员训练和/或战斗暴露等经历如何影响大脑中指导威胁感知的潜在注意机制。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Military veterans, Norwich cadets, and Middlebury undergraduates will be recruited to participate in a study of threat perception. Participants will be asked to view images and listen to stimuli that vary with respect to their threatening content while eye movements and brain activity are recorded. The auditory stimuli will consist of novel and unexpected sounds. The visual stimuli will include images of middle-eastern men dressed in traditional or nontraditional clothing. Measures of eye movements such as fixation duration, fixation location, and gaze duration will be recorded with eye tracking equipment in order to assess threat related differences in visual attention. Electrical activity in the brain will be recorded using event related potentials (ERPs), which capture the brain's response to specific visual and auditory stimuli. The data will be analyzed for differences in brain activity and eye movement patterns across participants having different levels of military and combat experience. Clinical measures of post-traumatic stress will also be correlated with measures of eye movements and brain activity while viewing threatening stimuli. The goal of this research is to understand how experiences such as cadet training and/or combat exposure affect the underlying attentional mechanisms in the brain that guide the perception of threat.