Uncertain Cue Research Articles

ONLINE SHOPPING USER PORTRAIT MODEL CONSIDERING PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL FACTORS

ONLINE SHOPPING USER PORTRAIT MODEL CONSIDERING PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL FACTORS

Threat appraisal and negative affect under ambiguity in generalised anxiety disorder

Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is one of the most common anxiety disorders, yet its mechanisms remain poorly understood. In the current study, we assessed threat processing and negative affect under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity in a sample of treatment-seeking individuals with GAD (n = 34) and in community controls (n = 34). Participants completed a laboratory aversive learning task based on that used by Grupe and Nitschke (2011). A bias in threat expectancy was observed in GAD participants relative to controls for an ambiguous cue that had not been mentioned in the instructions. GAD participants also overestimated the number of times this ambiguous cue had been followed by an aversive outcome, relative to an instructed uncertain cue (50 %). This covariation bias was not observed in controls. GAD participants also reported significantly stronger negative affect towards the ambiguous cue than the uncertain cue, a pattern that was not observed in controls, although the group interaction did not reach significance. These results provide preliminary evidence that ambiguity – rather than uncertainty per se – may be a particularly powerful trigger for biased threat appraisal and negative affect in GAD.

The effects of valid and invalid expectations about stimulus valence on behavioural and electrophysiological responses to emotional pictures

Previous studies have shown that uncertainty about the expected valence of an upcoming stimulus modulates behavioural and neural responses to the stimulus. However, relatively little is known about how invalid emotion expectations (i.e. expecting a positive picture but seeing a negative picture) affect neural and behavioural responses. To investigate this, two experiments were conducted where participants viewed and rated the pleasantness of emotional pictures that were preceded by a cue. In Experiment 1, there were three cue conditions: uncertain, valid and invalid. The uncertain cue did not indicate the valence of the upcoming picture, whereas cues in the valid condition (70% of positive and negative cues) correctly indicated the valence of the upcoming picture. The remaining trials were invalid, where the valence of the picture differed from the expected valence. Behavioural results showed that invalidly cued negative pictures elicited more neutral valence ratings compared to validly cued pictures. In Experiment 2 we replicated the findings of Experiment 1, and in addition found an increased amplitude for the early (400–600 ms) portion of the late positive potential (LPP) for invalidly compared to validly cued pictures. Together, these results show that invalid expectations influence the neural and behavioural processing of subsequently presented emotional pictures, where invalidly cued pictures led to attenuated (i.e., more neutral) emotional responses, and enhanced early LPP amplitude, compared to validly cued pictures.

Influence of Uncertain Anticipation on Brain Responses to Aversive Rectal Distension in Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

We investigated whether certainty and uncertainty of impending aversive visceral sensation differently modulate regional brain activity, both during anticipation and visceral sensation in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients compared with healthy controls. Twenty-six IBS patients (14 women) and 29 healthy controls (15 women) were enrolled in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Participants received rectal distention at an individually titrated severe discomfort level that was preceded by visual cues to induce certain (100% chance of distention), uncertain (50% chance), and safe (0% chance) anticipation. Subjective ratings of anticipatory fear before and discomfort during distention were similar between IBS and control participants under cued certainty and uncertainty (p > .05). Uncertain anticipation compared with certain anticipation induced greater activation of anterior midcingulate cortex, thalamus, and visual processing areas in IBS patients compared with controls. Rectal distention after the uncertain, but not certain, cue induced higher activity in the posterior- and midcingulate cortices and the precuneus in IBS compared with controls. Controls exhibited bilateral insula activation during the nondistention period after the uncertain cue compared with the safe cue. IBS patients failed to produce this response, which was possibly due to elevated bilateral insular responses during nondistention after the safe cue. Brain data were significant at a voxel-level threshold of puncorrected value of less than .005 combined with a cluster-level threshold of pFWE-corrected value of less than .05. Preceding uncertainty differentially modulates the brain processing of physiologically identical rectal stimulation in IBS patients. Cue-dependent alterations in brain responses may underlie hypervigilance to visceral sensations in IBS patients.

Neural basis of uncertain cue processing in trait anxiety.

Individuals with high trait anxiety form a non-clinical group with a predisposition for an anxiety-related bias in emotional and cognitive processing that is considered by some to be a prerequisite for psychiatric disorders. Anxious individuals tend to experience more worry under uncertainty, and processing uncertain information is an important, but often overlooked factor in anxiety. So, we decided to explore the brain correlates of processing uncertain information in individuals with high trait anxiety using the learn-test paradigm. Behaviorally, the percentages on memory test and the likelihood ratios of identifying novel stimuli under uncertainty were similar to the certain fear condition, but different from the certain neutral condition. The brain results showed that the visual cortex, bilateral fusiform gyrus, and right parahippocampal gyrus were active during the processing of uncertain cues. Moreover, we found that trait anxiety was positively correlated with the BOLD signal of the right parahippocampal gyrus during the processing of uncertain cues. No significant results were found in the amygdala during uncertain cue processing. These results suggest that memory retrieval is associated with uncertain cue processing, which is underpinned by over-activation of the right parahippocampal gyrus, in individuals with high trait anxiety.

Uncertainty is associated with increased selective attention and sustained stimulus processing.

Uncertainty about future threat has been found to be associated with an overestimation of threat probability and is hypothesized to elicit additional allocation of attention. We used event-related potentials to examine uncertainty-related dynamics in attentional allocation, exploiting brain potentials' high temporal resolution and sensitivity to attention. Thirty participants performed a picture-viewing task in which cues indicated the subsequent picture valence. A certain-neutral and a certain-aversive cue accurately predicted subsequent picture valence, whereas an uncertain cue did not. Participants overestimated the effective frequency of aversive pictures following the uncertain cue, both during and after the task, signifying expectancy and covariation biases, and they tended to express lower subjective valences for aversive pictures presented after the uncertain cue. Pictures elicited increased P2 and LPP amplitudes when their valence could not be predicted from the cue. For the LPP, this effect was more pronounced in response to neutral pictures. Uncertainty appears to enhance the engagement of early phasic and sustained attention for uncertainly cued targets. Thus, defensive motivation related to uncertainty about future threat elicits specific attentional dynamics implicating prioritization at various processing stages, especially for nonthreatening stimuli that tend to violate expectations.

Early adversity disrupts the adult use of aversive prediction errors to reduce fear in uncertainty

Early life adversity increases anxiety in adult rodents and primates, and increases the risk for developing post-traumatic disorder (PTSD) in humans. We hypothesized that early adversity impairs the use of learning signals -negative, aversive prediction errors–to reduce fear in uncertainty. To test this hypothesis, we gave adolescent rats a battery of adverse experiences then assessed adult performance in probabilistic Pavlovian fear conditioning and fear extinction. Rats were confronted with three cues associated with different probabilities of foot shock: one cue never predicted shock, another cue predicted shock with uncertainty, and a final cue always predicted shock. Control rats initially acquired fear to all cues, but rapidly reduced fear to the non-predictive and uncertain cues. Early adversity rats were slower to reduce fear to the non-predictive cue and never fully reduced fear to the uncertain cue. In extinction, all cues were presented in the absence of shock. Fear to the uncertain cue in discrimination, but not early adversity itself, predicted the reduction of fear in extinction. These results demonstrate early adversity impairs the use of negative aversive prediction errors to reduce fear, especially in situations of uncertainty.

Alcohol stress response dampening during imminent versus distal, uncertain threat.

Research indicates that fear and anxiety are distinct processes with separable neurobiological substrates. Predictable versus unpredictable shock administration has been used to elicit fear versus anxiety, respectively. Recent research has demonstrated that alcohol may reduce anxiety but not fear. However, previous manipulations of predictability have varied both probability and temporal uncertainty of shock threat, leaving unresolved questions regarding which stimulus characteristics elicit anxiety and are sensitive to alcohol stress-response dampening (SRD). We developed a novel paradigm to closely parallel basic research in animals that systematically varied temporal uncertainty of threat while holding threat probability constant. Intoxicated (0.08% target blood alcohol concentration), placebo, and no-alcohol control participants viewed a series of visual threat cues. Certain cue duration (5 s) blocks were equivalent to predictable shock blocks eliciting fear in earlier research. Uncertain cue duration (5, 20, 50, or 80 s, intermixed) blocks introduced temporal uncertainty regarding impending shock to elicit anxiety. Startle potentiation relative to matched cue periods in no-shock blocks provided the primary measure of affective response. All threat cues produced robust startle potentiation. Alcohol reduced startle potentiation during the first 5 s of threat cue presentation in uncertain but not certain duration blocks. Alcohol also reduced startle potentiation at later times among longer uncertain duration cues, suggesting that alcohol SRD persisted. Trait negative emotionality and binge drinking status moderated alcohol SRD magnitude during uncertain threat. These translational findings corroborate previous reports regarding distinct substrates of fear versus anxiety and have implications for both alcoholism etiology and comorbidity with anxiety disorders.

Parasite primes make foreign-accented English sound more distant to people who are disgusted by pathogens (but not by sex or morality)

To avoid disease, people should maintain close ties with ingroup members but maintain distance from outgroup members who possess novel pathogens. Consistent with this disease-avoidance hypothesis, pathogenic stimuli, as well as increased personal vulnerability to disease, are associated with xenophobic and ethnocentric attitudes. Researchers assume that this disease-avoidance process is an automatic emotional response that compels negative attitudes and behavioral avoidance. However, when outgroup contact can represent fitness costs or benefits, and when group membership is an uncertain cue to infection risk, it becomes a fitness advantage for a social perceiver to track group membership and thus infection risk. Given that accents can be a cue to group membership, we predicted that the perception of linguistic similarity to ingroup speakers and dissimilarity from outgroup speakers would increase with individual differences in pathogen disgust, and that this association would be most apparent when threat of disease was salient. This hypothesis was confirmed in two experiments. Further, the mechanism was domain specific—disgust due to sexual acts and moral violations did not moderate perceived linguistic distance. The disease-avoidance mechanism is not just an automatic disgust-based reaction; it also operates through the cognitive appraisal of social distance.

How an uncertain cue modulates subsequent monetary outcome evaluation: An ERP study

People avert uncertain situations more than certain ones, and the neural correlates of such acts have gained increasing attention in past decade. However, the electrophysiological bases of how subjects respond to uncertain cues, and how such cues affect subsequent outcome evaluations have rarely been explored. In the present study, participants completed a gambling task while their neural activities were recorded through electroencephalography. The results indicated that subjects were sensitive to the uncertain cue as represented by feedback-related negativity (FRN). This uncertain cue further enhanced the neural response to outcome evaluation represented by P200, FRN, and P300 temporally. The enhanced P200 outcome may reflect the negative bias of the emotional reaction, which is a reflection of uncertain deviation at an early stage. The discrepancies of differentiated feedback-related negativity between uncertain and certain condition indicated increased motivation or prediction error toward the outcome. Finally, the increased P300 amplitude under uncertain outcome compared with certain one, as well as its sensitivity to the valence of the outcome under uncertain condition, embodies the increased arousal of the affective response. Therefore, uncertain cue effects observed in the current study suggest that uncertainty induces a larger motivational/affective and expectation response toward outcome revelation.

Uncertainty is associated with biased expectancies and heightened responses to aversion.

Uncertainty is an omnipresent force in peoples' lives that has been shown to amplify the negative impact of aversive events. This amplified aversiveness, together with the negative attitudes that individuals can have toward uncertainty, suggests that a cue indicating uncertainty about future events might be associated with biased expectancies of negative outcomes or biased contingency estimates, similar to biases that have been observed for traditional fear-relevant cues, such as snakes or spiders. Participants in this study saw three different cues: one that indicated with certainty that an aversive picture would follow, one that indicated with certainty that a neutral picture would follow, and one that indicated uncertainty about whether an aversive or neutral picture would follow. Online self-report data revealed negatively biased expectancies of aversion after uncertain cues. The degree of this online expectancy bias predicted participants' estimates, at the conclusion of the experiment, of the relationship between uncertain cues and aversive pictures. Aversive pictures after the uncertain cue (relative to those after the certain cue) were accompanied by increased skin conductance responses and self-reported negative mood. These findings that uncertainty is accompanied by biased expectancies of aversion and heightened responses to aversion warrant extensions of this research in anxiety disorders, given evidence for intolerance of uncertainty and anticipatory dysfunction in the pathology of such disorders.

Uncertainty during Anticipation Modulates Neural Responses to Aversion in Human Insula and Amygdala

Uncertainty about potential negative future outcomes can cause stress and is a central feature of anxiety disorders. The stress and anxiety associated with uncertain situations may lead individuals to overestimate the frequency with which uncertain cues are followed by negative outcomes, an example of covariation bias. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that uncertainty-related expectations modulated neural responses to aversion. Insula and amygdala responses to aversive pictures were larger after an uncertain cue (that preceded aversive or neutral pictures) than a certain cue (that always preceded aversive pictures). Anticipatory anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activity elicited by the cues was inversely associated with the insula and amygdala responses to aversive pictures following the cues. Nearly 75% of subjects overestimated the frequency of aversive pictures following uncertain cues, and ACC and insula activity predicted this uncertainty-related covariation bias. Findings provide the first evidence of the brain mechanisms of covariation bias and highlight the temporal dynamics of ACC, insula, and amygdala recruitment for processing aversion in the context of uncertainty.