UNCONSCIOUS FEAR EFFECTS ON DECISION MAKING

本子项目是利用由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源的众多研究子项目之一。子项目和研究者（PI）可能已经从另一个NIH来源获得了主要资金，因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。列出的机构是中心的，不一定是研究者的机构。使用爱荷华赌博任务（IGT）的研究表明，通过皮肤阻力（SCR）的降低来测量的预期恐惧反应，在有意识地意识到恐惧以及行为上回避恐惧刺激（在这个任务中，在赌博任务中导致损失的卡片）之前。许多人将这些发现解释为无意识的恐惧反应可能在没有意识的情况下影响行为。虽然这一现象在非临床样本中得到了广泛的研究，但这项工作的临床相关性却很少受到关注。已知恐惧受试者对恐惧相关刺激产生scr，即使是潜意识呈现的刺激。本研究将探讨这种对阈下刺激的预期恐惧反应是否会导致恐惧受试者回避与恐惧相关的刺激。400名大学生将接受蜘蛛恐惧症筛查得分最高的学生将被分到？高恐惧?（HF）和？低恐惧?(低频)组。两个小组都将执行一个修改版的爱荷华赌博任务，其中包括当做出某些选择时，与恐惧相关的刺激的潜意识呈现。只有恐惧受试者才会对与恐惧相关的刺激产生scr，因此，即使在不知道刺激呈现的情况下，他们也应该是唯一对这种刺激表现出行为回避的群体。

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. Studies using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) have shown that anticipatory fear responses, as measured by decreases in skin resistance (SCR), precede both conscious awareness of fear as well behavioral avoidance of feared stimuli (in this task-- cards that lead to losses during a gambling task). Many have interpreted such findings to suggest that non-conscious fear responses may influence behavior without awareness. While this phenomenon is being widely studied in non-clinical samples, the clinical relevance of this work has received little attention. Phobic subjects are known to produce SCRs to fear-related stimuli even when presented subliminally. This study will investigate whether such anticipatory fear responses to subliminal stimuli will lead to avoidance of fear-related stimuli in phobic subjects. Four hundred college students will be screened for spider fear with extreme scorers placed into ?high fear? (HF) and ?low fear? (LF) groups. Both groups will perform a modified version of the Iowa Gambling Task that will include subliminal presentations of fear-related stimuli when certain choices are made. Only phobic subjects should produce SCRs to fear-related stimuli and thus should be the only group to show behavioral avoidance of such stimuli even when unaware of the stimulus presentation.