CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF THREAT IN MILITARY CADETS AND WAR VETERANS

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。 本研究的目的是了解学员训练和刺激特征等经验如何影响大脑中指导视觉和听觉处理威胁的潜在注意机制。 诺维奇的军校学员和米德尔伯里的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和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。大脑中的电活动将使用事件相关电位（ERP）记录，它捕捉大脑对特定刺激的反应。将分析具有不同军事经验和精神病理学水平的参与者的大脑活动和眼动模式的差异。 目前，来自米德尔伯里的20名参与者中有15名已经完成了该协议。这些数据将在所有参与者完成研究后进行分析，并将作为第二个项目的试点数据，该项目将于6月开始。

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. The goal of this research is to understand how experiences such as cadet training and stimulus characteristics affect the underlying attentional mechanisms in the brain that guide visual and auditory processing of threat. 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 and non traditional 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 stimuli. The data will be analyzed for differences in brain activity and eye movement patterns across participants having different levels of military experience and psychopathology. Currently, fifteen of the twenty participants from Middlebury have been run through the protocol. The data will be analyzed upon completion of all participants in the study and will serve as pilot data from a second project to begin in June.