Elizabeth A. Krusemark

Do all threats work the same way? Divergent effects of fear and disgust on sensory perception and attention

The extant literature indicates that threat enhances cognitive processing and physiological arousal. However, being largely based on fear-relevant processes, this model overlooks other adaptive but inhibitory mechanisms in alternative threat emotions such as disgust. Combining visual event–related potential (VERP) indices (P1 and P250/s) with a simple visual search task, we contrasted behavioral and neural responses to carefully controlled images of fear, disgust, or neutral emotion (as a baseline condition). Consistent with previous findings, fear augmented VERP amplitude and electrical current density in associate visual cortices, paralleled by facilitated object search. Conversely, disgust generated an opposite pattern of effects, reflected by reduced VERP potentials and diminished visual cortical current density along with slowed search time. These results demonstrated suppressed sensory perceptual and attentional processing of disgust information, akin to the central ecological function of disgust to minimize contact with contagious objects to avoid contamination and disease. Notably, the rapid emergence of discrimination between fear and disgust as early as 96 ms after stimulus emphasizes the efficiency of emotional classification not only between threat and nonthreat, but also within the threat domain itself. Finally, a positive correlation between anxiety and behavioral and neural divergence of fear and disgust further indicates that despite their convergence on the core affect of threat, disgust and fear instigate distinct response profiles, providing novel insights into the manifold and sometimes paradoxical symptomology in anxiety disorders.

When the Sense of Smell Meets Emotion: Anxiety-State-Dependent Olfactory Processing and Neural Circuitry Adaptation

Phylogenetically the most ancient sense, olfaction is characterized by a unique intimacy with the emotion system. However, mechanisms underlying olfaction–emotion interaction remain unclear, especially in an ever-changing environment and dynamic internal milieu. Perturbing the internal state with anxiety induction in human subjects, we interrogated emotion-state-dependent olfactory processing in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. Following anxiety induction, initially neutral odors become unpleasant and take longer to detect, accompanied by augmented response to these odors in the olfactory (anterior piriform and orbitofrontal) cortices and emotion-relevant pregenual anterior cingulate cortex. In parallel, the olfactory sensory relay adapts with increased anxiety, incorporating amygdala as an integral step via strengthened (afferent or efferent) connections between amygdala and all levels of the olfactory cortical hierarchy. This anxiety-state-dependent neural circuitry thus enables cumulative infusion of limbic affective information throughout the olfactory sensory progression, thereby driving affectively charged olfactory perception. These findings could constitute an olfactory etiology model of emotional disorders, as exaggerated emotion–olfaction interaction in negative mood states turns innocuous odors aversive, fueling anxiety and depression with rising ambient sensory stress.

Attributions, deception, and event related potentials: an investigation of the self-serving bias.

Self-serving attributions occur when negative personal outcomes are ascribed to external circumstances and when positive outcomes are ascribed to internal factors. Individuals strategically employ the self-serving bias to maintain and protect positive self-views. The current study investigated the neural correlates of the self-serving bias using dense array EEG, giving 20 participants false (success or failure) feedback during a facial working memory task. Participants made self-serving attributions during the task, primarily following failure feedback. Voltage and source analyses in response to attribution stimuli revealed that, compared to self-serving responses, non-self-serving attributions were preceded by enhanced dorsomedial frontal cortex activity. This finding suggests that unbiased attributions require greater self-control, overriding the automatic tendency for self-enhancement.

Enhanced Olfactory Sensory Perception of Threat in Anxiety: An Event-Related fMRI Study

The current conceptualization of threat processing in anxiety emphasizes emotional hyper-reactivity, which mediates various debilitating symptoms and derangements in anxiety disorders. Here, we investigated olfactory sensory perception of threat as an alternative causal mechanism of anxiety. Combining an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm with an olfactory discrimination task, we examined how anxiety modulates basic perception of olfactory threats at behavioral and neural levels. In spite of subthreshold presentation of negative and neutral odors, a positive systematic association emerged between negative odor discrimination accuracy and anxiety levels. In parallel, the right olfactory primary (piriform) cortex indicated augmented response to subthreshold negative (vs. neutral) odors as a function of individual differences in anxiety. Using a psychophysiological interaction analysis, we further demonstrated amplified functional connectivity between the piriform cortex and emotion-related regions (amygdala and hippocampus) in response to negative odor, particularly in anxiety. Finally, anxiety also intensified skin conductance response to negative (vs. neutral) odor, indicative of potentiated emotional arousal to subliminal olfactory threat in anxiety. Together, these findings elucidate exaggerated processing of olfactory threat in anxiety across behavioral, autonomic physiological, and neural domains. Critically, our data emphasized anxiety-related hyper-sensitivity of the primary olfactory cortex and basic olfactory perception in response to threat, highlighting neurosensory mechanisms that may underlie the deleterious symptoms of anxiety.

A magnetoencephalography investigation of neural correlates for social exclusion and self-control

Abstract Past research indicates that social exclusion leads to self-control failure. The present research examined the neural substrates of this effect. Participants were randomly assigned to either a social exclusion (n=15) or control (n=15) condition. Self-control was assessed by having participants solve 180 moderately difficult math problems while measuring how quickly they identified a supplied answer as correct or incorrect. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to assess neural activity during this task. Socially excluded participants showed lesser activity in occipital and parietal cortex from 100–350 ms after the presentation of the math problems. When presented with the answers, socially excluded participants showed lesser activity in several regions, including occipital, parietal, and right prefrontal cortex from 100–300 ms post-stimulus. Furthermore, activation in the parietal and right prefrontal cortex mediated exclusion-control performance differences on math problems. The findings suggest that social exclusion interferes with the executive control of attention, and this effect is manifest in specific aspects of cognitive performance and brain function.

From Early Sensory Specialization to Later Perceptual Generalization: Dynamic Temporal Progression in Perceiving Individual Threats

Threat evokes a variety of negative emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust. Whereas they elicit distinct and even opposite facial, sensory, and autonomic reflexes, threat-related emotions often converge in the actions they prompt (e.g., negative evaluation and avoidance). Here, we tested a unifying hypothesis that threat processing initially involves specialized encoding of individual subtypes to support discrete reflexive operations that later gives way to generalized elaborate analysis to facilitate convergent defensive behavior. Combining event-related potentials (ERPs) and a defensive context in human subjects, we compared temporal courses of perceptual analysis of two threat subtypes—fear and disgust. Indeed, fear enhanced and disgust suppressed early (115 ms) response in visual cortex, accentuating specialized sensory encoding of threat subtypes in accordance with the opposite behavioral and autonomic reflexes they typically elicit. By contrast, later ERP waveforms evoked by fear and disgust merged gradually over time (130–425 ms). Consistently, visual ERPs to anthropomorphic Greeble objects presented after fear versus disgust images also overlapped despite their clear departure from the neutral condition, paralleled by comparable exaggeration in Greeble imminence perception in the two threat (vs neutral) conditions. This later confluence of neural and behavioral response between fear and disgust thus highlights general threat categorization in high-level, downstream perception of threat. By delineating the temporal dynamics in perceiving individual threat emotions, our findings thus provide some of the first evidence to reconcile multidimensional and unidimensional aspects of information processing within the domain of threat, shedding new light on symptom heterogeneity across the anxiety disorder spectrum.

Trait Self-esteem Moderates Decreases in Self-control Following Rejection: An Information-processing Account

In the current paper, the authors posit that trait self–esteem moderates the relationship between social rejection and decrements in self–control, propose an information–processing account of trait self–esteems moderating influence and discuss three tests of this theory. The authors measured trait self–esteem, experimentally manipulated social rejection and assessed subsequent self–control in Studies 1 and 2. Additionally, Study 3 framed a self–control task as diagnostic of social skills to examine motivational influences. Together, the results reveal that rejection impairs self–control, but only among low self–esteem individuals. Moreover, this decrement in self–control only emerged when the task had no social implications—suggesting that low self–esteem individuals exert effort on tasks of social value and are otherwise preoccupied with belonging needs when completing nonsocial tasks. Copyright

The impact of cognitive control, incentives, and working memory load on the P3 responses of externalizing prisoners

The P3 amplitude reduction is one of the most common correlates of externalizing. However, few studies have used experimental manipulations designed to challenge different cognitive functions in order to clarify the processes that impact this reduction. To examine factors moderating P3 amplitude in trait externalizing, we administered an n-back task that manipulated cognitive control demands, working memory load, and incentives to a sample of male offenders. Offenders with high trait externalizing scores did not display a global reduction in P3 amplitude. Rather, the negative association between trait externalizing and P3 amplitude was specific to trials involving inhibition of a dominant response during infrequent stimuli, in the context of low working memory load, and incentives for performance. In addition, we discuss the potential implications of these findings for externalizing-related psychopathologies. The results complement and expand previous work on the process-level dysfunction contributing to externalizing-related deficits in P3.

Neural correlates of the impact of control on decision making in pathological gambling

Perceived control over a gambling outcome leads individuals to accept more and larger bets, increased risk-taking. Pathological gamblers, however, do not diminish risk-taking when control is absent, suggesting an illusion of control. To evaluate neural correlates of perceived control in gamblers, this study compared magnetoencephalography responses of 36 pathological (PG) and 36 non-pathological gamblers (NPG) during the Georgia Gambling Task. PGs exhibited greater activity in bilateral primary sensory regions. An interaction between pathology and control over the gambling task was observed bilaterally throughout dorsal and ventral visual processing streams, and lateral PFC. NPGs showed decreased activity when control was absent. Groups did not differ in response to potential bet cost. These findings provide neurophysiological evidence that PGs suffer from the pattern of risk-taking associated with perceived control, even when no control exists. They suggest that gambling pathology contributes to differential processing of gambling stimuli other than potential costs or rewards.

Narcissism dimensions differentially moderate selective attention to evaluative stimuli in incarcerated offenders.

Narcissistic personality disorder is associated with distinguishing traits including self-enhancement, arrogance, and intense reactivity to ego threat. Theoretical accounts of narcissism suggest these heterogeneous behaviors reflect a defensive motivational style that functions to both uphold and protect the self-concept. However, the notion that narcissism can be characterized by grandiose and vulnerable dimensions raises the possibility that these diverse behaviors represent distinct expressions of narcissistic defensiveness. The present study examined whether both dimensions exhibit a general defensive style marked by selective attention to evaluative stimuli or are differentially associated with selective attention to positive and negative information, respectively. Using a dot probe task consisting of valenced and neutral trait adjectives, we evaluated these hypotheses in a group of male offenders. Results indicated that vulnerable narcissism was associated with attention biases for both positive and negative stimuli, though the dimension was further distinguished by disengagement difficulties and a greater recognition memory bias in response to negative words. Conversely, grandiose narcissism was associated with increased accuracy when attending to positive stimuli and directing attention away from negative stimuli. Overall, these findings suggest narcissistic individuals share motivated selective attention in response to evaluative stimuli, while simultaneously highlighting important phenotypic differences between grandiose and vulnerable dimensions.