Behavioral and neural indices of affective coloring for neutral social stimuli

Grupe, Dan; Schaefer, Stacey M.; Lapate, Regina C.; Schoen, Andrew; Gresham, Lauren K.; Mumford, Jeanette A.; Davidson, Richard J.

doi:10.1093/scan/nsy011

Cited by 14 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Prior research has demonstrated that ratings of novel neutral as well as emotionally ambiguous faces are influenced by emotional state, by priming with affective images, and by dispositional characteristics in a phenomenon described as affective bias or coloring [33, 34]. Here, novel neutral African American, White, and Asian female and male faces appeared on a computer screen with a visual slider underneath ranging from 0 (not at all likable) to 100 (very likable).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent effects of brief contemplative practices in response to an acute stressor: A randomized controlled trial of brief breath awareness, loving-kindness, gratitude or an attention control practice

et al. 2018

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Mindfulness practices are increasingly being utilized as a method for cultivating well-being. The term mindfulness is often used as an umbrella for a variety of different practices and many mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) contain multiple styles of practice. Despite the diversity of practices within MBIs, few studies have investigated whether constituent practices produce specific effects. We randomized 156 undergraduates to one of four brief practices: breath awareness, loving-kindness, gratitude, or to an attention control condition. We assessed practice effects on affect following brief training, and effects on affect and behavior after provocation with a stressor (i.e., Cold pressor test). Results indicate that gratitude training significantly improved positive affect compared to breath awareness (d = 0.58) and loving-kindness led to significantly greater reductions in implicit negative affect compared to the control condition (d = 0.59) immediately after brief practice. In spite of gains in positive affect, the gratitude group demonstrated increased reactivity to the stressor, reporting the CPT as significantly more aversive than the control condition (d = 0.46) and showing significantly greater increases in negative affect compared to the breath awareness, loving-kindness, and control groups (ds = 0.55, 0.60, 0.65, respectively). Greater gains in implicit positive affect following gratitude training predicted decreased post-stressor likability ratings of novel neutral faces compared to breath awareness, loving-kindness, and control groups (ds = - 0.39, -0.40, -0.33, respectively) as well. Moreover, the gratitude group was significantly less likely to donate time than the loving-kindness group in an ecologically valid opportunity to provide unrewarded support. These data suggest that different styles of contemplative practice may produce different effects in the context of brief, introductory practice and these differences may be heightened by stress. Implications for the study of contemplative practices are discussed.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divergent effects of brief contemplative practices in response to an acute stressor: A randomized controlled trial of brief breath awareness, loving-kindness, gratitude or an attention control practice

et al. 2018

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“…Individual differences in amygdala response to fearful faces predict how negatively a subsequent, unrelated neutral stimulus is appraised (Lapate et al, 2016;Lapate et al, 2017). This biasing effect may be due to persistence of amygdala activity following emotionally evocative stimuli that 'spills over' into the encoding of the subsequent neutral stimulus (Grupe et al, 2018;Tambini et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking Amygdala Persistence to Real-World Emotional Experience and Psychological Well-Being

et al. 2021

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At the intersection of affective neuroscience and psychology, researchers have aimed to understand how individual differences in the neural processing of affective events map onto to real-world emotional experiences and evaluations of well-being.Using a longitudinal dataset from 52 adults in the Midlife in the US (MIDUS) study, we provide an integrative model of affective functioning: less amygdala persistence following negative images predicts greater positive affect in daily life, which in turn predicts greater psychological well-being seven years later. Thus, day-to-day experiences of positive affect comprise a promising intermediate step that links individual differences in neural dynamics to complex judgements of psychological wellbeing.

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“…Other studies have similarly demonstrated that acute stress alters how facial emotions are processed in healthy individuals (Chen et al 2014 ; Daudelin-Peltier et al 2017 ). Recently, Grupe et al ( 2018 ) demonstrated that neural responses to neutral facial stimuli were differentially modulated based on the valence (negative or positive) of the faces presented immediately prior, with greater amygdalar activations for neutral faces that were presented after negative faces. Considering our results in light of this literature, we surmise that evaluating previously seen information in an altered emotional state, i.e., under stress, may have transformed the previously neutral stimuli into more emotionally salient, resulting in the observed change in threat ratings for neutral faces.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of suppressing the biological stress systems on social threat-assessment following acute stress

et al. 2020

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Rationale Stress is associated with increased sensitivity to threat. Previous investigations examining how stress affects threat processing have largely focused on biomarker responses associated with either the sympathetic-nervous-system (SNS) or the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Objectives We pharmacologically suppressed activations of SNS, HPA, or both, prior to stress and investigated how each stress system modulates social threat assessment. Methods One hundred sixty-one healthy men and women were randomized in a between-subject design, to one of four pharmacological or placebo conditions: dexamethasone–placebo, placebo–propranolol, dexamethasone–propranolol, or placebo–placebo. Participants provided threat assessments for angry and neutral human faces on a baseline day, and immediately after stress induction on a testing day. Results With both systems responding normally to stress (placebo–placebo), threat assessment was higher for neutral faces compared with angry. Compared with placebo, SNS suppression resulted in increased threat assessment for angry faces. HPA suppression resulted in decreased threat assessment for neutral and angry faces. When both systems were suppressed, there was an increase in threat assessment for angry faces, and no difference from placebo for neutral. Conclusion Our findings demonstrated that when intact, the biological stress systems adaptively support organisms during stress by focusing attention towards specific stimuli that are relevant to the threat. Dysregulations of the stress systems result in important system specific consequences on threat evaluation, such that suppression of either stress system alone resulted in reduced threat assessment for contextually relevant threatening stimuli, whereas when both systems were suppressed, individuals appear indiscriminately attentive to all potential threats in the environment, resulting in increased threat processing of both contextually relevant and irrelevant stimuli. Given that stress-related psychopathologies have been associated with dysregulations of the stress systems and biased responses to social threat, a systematic understanding of the mechanisms that underlie how stress systems modulate social threat assessment is needed, and can provide important insights into the cognitive processes that are involved in the development and maintenance of stress-related psychopathologies.

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Behavioral and neural indices of affective coloring for neutral social stimuli

Cited by 14 publications

References 68 publications

Divergent effects of brief contemplative practices in response to an acute stressor: A randomized controlled trial of brief breath awareness, loving-kindness, gratitude or an attention control practice

Divergent effects of brief contemplative practices in response to an acute stressor: A randomized controlled trial of brief breath awareness, loving-kindness, gratitude or an attention control practice

Linking Amygdala Persistence to Real-World Emotional Experience and Psychological Well-Being

The effects of suppressing the biological stress systems on social threat-assessment following acute stress

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