Abstract
Stress exposure elicits a prolonged neuroendocrine response, marked by cortisol release, which can influence important forms of affective decision-making. Identifying how stress reactivity shapes subjective biases in decisions about emotional ambiguity (i.e., valence bias) provides insight into the role stress plays in basic affective processing for healthy and clinical populations alike. Here, we sought to examine how stress reactivity affects valence decisions about emotional ambiguity. Given that stress prioritizes automatic emotional processing which, in the context of valence bias, is associated with increased negativity, we tested how individual differences in acute stress responses influence valence bias and how this decision process evolves over time. Participants provided baseline ratings of clear (happy, angry) and ambiguous (surprised) facial expressions, then re-rated similar stimuli after undergoing an acute stress or control manipulation a week later; salivary cortisol was measured throughout to assay stress reactivity. Elevations in cortisol were associated with more negative ratings of surprised faces, and with more direct response trajectories toward negative ratings (i.e., less response competition). These effects were selectively driven by the stress group, evidencing that increased stress reactivity is associated with a stronger negativity bias during ambiguous affective decision-making.
Highlights
Life is marked by exposure to stressors known to elicit neurophysiological responses that exert powerful effects on brain function and behavior
A recent surge of work has identified stress exposure as a prominent factor that shapes affective decision-making under uncertainty
We causally manipulated stress exposure in half of our participants and measured how neuroendocrine responses to stress affect the perception of ambiguous facial expressions that could signal either positive or negative responses
Summary
Life is marked by exposure to stressors known to elicit neurophysiological responses that exert powerful effects on brain function and behavior. This predisposed tendency for negativity is marked by higher amygdala activity and faster reaction times[5,10], whereas positive ratings emerge after longer reaction times and the recruitment of prefrontal networks[5,8,9,10,11] These findings support a provisional model for the appraisal of surprised faces as being predisposed to be negative, with additional processing or regulatory influence required to shift the predictive value of such cues from negative and to positive. Acute stress exposure has been linked to negative affect[4], diminished cognitive control and flexibility[14,15,16], and reduced regulation of negative emotion[17] and threat responses[18] Elevated stress hormones such as catecholamines (e.g. dopamine, noradrenaline) and glucocorticoids (i.e., cortisol) reduce prefrontal control and enhance amygdala activity that supports the detection of biologically salient cues[19,20,21]. Our primary goal was to assess whether stress reactivity affects the perceived valence of ambiguous social cues and track the dynamics of the choice process prior to the final valence decision
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