Anticipation of Uncertain Threat Modulates Subsequent Affective Responses and Covariation Bias

Abstract

Uncertainty contributes to stress and anxiety-like behaviors by impairing the ability of participants to objectively estimate threat. Our study used the cue-picture paradigm in conjunction with the event-related potential (ERP) technique to explore the temporal dynamics of anticipation for and response to uncertain threat in healthy individuals. This task used two types of cue. While ‘certain’ cues precisely forecasted the valence of the subsequent pictures (negative or neutral), the valence of pictures following ‘uncertain’ cues was not predictable. ERP data showed that, during anticipation, uncertain cues elicited similar Stimulus-Preceding Negativity (SPN) to certain-negative cues, while both of them elicited larger SPN than certain-neutral cues. During affective processing, uncertainty enlarged the mean amplitude of late positive potential (LPP) for both negative and neutral pictures. Behavioral data showed that participants reported more negative mood ratings of uncertain-neutral pictures relative to certain-neutral pictures and overestimated the probability of negative pictures following uncertain cues. Importantly, the enlarged anticipatory activity evoked by uncertain cues relative to that evoked by certain-neutral cues positively modulated the more negative mood ratings of uncertain-neutral pictures relative to certain-neutral pictures. Further, this more negative mood ratings and the general arousal anticipation during anticipatory stage contributed to the covariation bias. These results can provide a novel insight into understanding the neural mechanism and pathological basis of anxiety.

Cue Valence Influences the Effects of Cue Uncertainty on ERP Responses to Emotional Events

“…In contrast, certain cues might result in more negative-going ERP responses to negative pictures than uncertain cues in related processes. Moreover, in light of our first hypothesis and previous studies regarding non-emotional cues (Gole et al, 2012;Yang et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2015aLin et al, , 2017bLin et al, , 2018Dieterich et al, 2016Dieterich et al, , 2017Qiao et al, 2018), our second hypothesis is that cue valence would modulate the effects of cue uncertainty on ERP responses to emotional events. Specifically, the effect of cue uncertainty will be reversed between the emotional cue and non-emotional cue conditions, particularly for negative pictures.…”

“…Some of these emotional and non-emotional cues signify upcoming events with certainty (i.e., they are certain cues), whereas others do not (i.e., they are uncertain cues). The different categories of cues might critically influence the perception of emotional consequences and even guide decision-making associated with those consequences (e.g., Onoda et al, 2006Onoda et al, , 2007Onoda et al, , 2008Sarinopoulos et al, 2010;Grupe and Nitschke, 2011;Gole et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2012Lin et al, , 2014aLin et al, ,b, 2015aLin et al, ,d, 2017bLin et al, , 2018Yang et al, 2012;Aue et al, 2013;Dieterich et al, 2016Dieterich et al, , 2017Sussman et al, 2017;Qiao et al, 2018).…”

“…Laboratory studies often use a cue-event paradigm to manipulate different categories of cues (e.g., Onoda et al, 2006Onoda et al, , 2007Onoda et al, , 2008Sarinopoulos et al, 2010;Grupe and Nitschke, 2011;Staudinger et al, 2011;Gole et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2012Lin et al, , 2014aLin et al, ,b, 2015aLin et al, ,d, 2017bLin et al, , 2018Yang et al, 2012;Aue et al, 2013;Gruber et al, 2013;Galli et al, 2014;Dieterich et al, 2016Dieterich et al, , 2017Qiao et al, 2018). In this paradigm, expectancy cues are presented before emotional events.…”

“…Using the abovementioned ERPs, several studies have shown the effects of cue uncertainty on negative events when the emotional consequence is indicated by non-emotional cues. Note that there are studies regarding both explicit expectations (Dieterich et al, 2016(Dieterich et al, , 2017Lin et al, 2018;Qiao et al, 2018) and implicit expectations (Gole et al, 2012;Yang et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2015aLin et al, , 2017bLin et al, , 2018. Because the present study investigates the effect of cue uncertainty only in the context of implicit expectations, we only introduce the following related studies.…”

“…Notably, previous studies have often included neutral pictures in such experiments (Gole et al, 2012;Dieterich et al, 2016Dieterich et al, , 2017Lin et al, 2017bLin et al, , 2018Qiao et al, 2018). If we had done the same in the present study, neutral faces should have been used as certain cues in the emotional cue condition.…”