Emotional context influences access of visual stimuli to anxious individuals’ awareness

Ruderman, Lital; Lamy, Dominique

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2012.01.015

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Socially anxious people are more likely to interpret nonthreatening faces as threatening (Heuer, Lange, Isaac, Rinck, & Becker, 2010). Furthermore, high trait anxiety individuals require shorter stimulus exposure times to become aware of threatening face targets in their stimuli (Ruderman & Lamy, 2012). It is possible, then, that anxious participants were uniquely skilled at detecting face targets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The goal of Experiment 2 was to replicate Experiment 1 using nonsocial target stimuli to assess the extent to which the effects in Experiment 1 may be better characterized in a social cognition context. Given past research indicating differential face perception performance in anxious participants (Heuer et al, 2010; Ruderman & Lamy, 2012), it is possible that participants in an uncertain emotional state are uniquely skilled at face perception. If this is the case, the results of Experiment 1 would not be expected to extend to the house stimuli used in Experiment 2.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The effect of emotional state on visual detection: A signal detection analysis.

Cataldo

Cohen

2015

Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research explores the effect of emotional states on visual detection. Previous research has shown that emotional states characterized by an intolerance of uncertainty, such as anxiety, can affect performance on visual detection tasks. It is unclear, however, to what extent these effects are a result of increased perceptual ability, a decisional bias, or both. The present study used signal detection theory to determine whether uncertain emotional states affect perceptual discriminability and/or decisional bias. In 2 experiments, an anxious, angry, or calm emotional state was induced, and participants were asked to identify which of a series of noisy images contained an embedded target image. The target images were either faces or houses. Emotional state had no effect on decisional bias for either target, but the ability to detect a face was higher for anxious participants. No effect on discriminability was found for houses. These results suggest that emotional state can change perceptual discriminability, but that this change may be limited to certain stimulus classes.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of emotional state on visual detection: A signal detection analysis.

Cataldo

Cohen

2015

Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, in adults with high trait anxiety, the anxious state lowers awareness thresholds. In particular, fearful faces or non-threat faces presented among threatening faces are detected faster (Ruderman and Lamy, 2012). Neurocognitive functioning in stress thus drops cognitive flexibility (i.e., reduced functions of the dorsolateral PFC) to stay focused on the stressors, this attentional tunneling during emotional arousal allows the individual to detach from the ''peripheral'' information unrelated to the stressor that might distract the individual who is under pressure (e.g., Palamarchuk and Vaillancourt, under review; see also Brosch et al, 2013;LeBlanc et al, 2015).…”

Section: Decision Making and Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental Resilience and Coping With Stress: A Comprehensive, Multi-level Model of Cognitive Processing, Decision Making, and Behavior

Palamarchuk

Vaillancourt

2021

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aversive events can evoke strong emotions that trigger cerebral neuroactivity to facilitate behavioral and cognitive shifts to secure physiological stability. However, upon intense and/or chronic exposure to such events, the neural coping processes can be maladaptive and disrupt mental well-being. This maladaptation denotes a pivotal point when psychological stress occurs, which can trigger subconscious, “automatic” neuroreactivity as a defence mechanism to protect the individual from potential danger including overwhelming unpleasant feelings and disturbing or threatening thoughts.The outcomes of maladaptive neural activity are cognitive dysfunctions such as altered memory, decision making, and behavior that impose a risk for mental disorders. Although the neurocognitive phenomena associated with psychological stress are well documented, the complex neural activity and pathways related to stressor detection and stress coping have not been outlined in detail. Accordingly, we define acute and chronic stress-induced pathways, phases, and stages in relation to novel/unpredicted, uncontrollable, and ambiguous stressors. We offer a comprehensive model of the stress-induced alterations associated with multifaceted pathophysiology related to cognitive appraisal and executive functioning in stress.

show abstract

“…The most recent studies in this field focus on social and contextual stimulus cues, which can both be processed unconsciously (Gobbini and others 2013; Ruderman and Lamy 2012) and activate the amygdala (Frith and Frith 2012). It appears now that even stimulus category (eg, animal or object) can influence the degree of amygdala activation for relatively matched affective unconscious stimuli (Fang and others 2016).…”

Section: Affective Pathways Revealed By Studies Of Blindsight and Uncmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blindsight and Unconscious Vision: What They Teach Us about the Human Visual System

Ajina

Bridge

2016

Neuroscientist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Damage to the primary visual cortex removes the major input from the eyes to the brain, causing significant visual loss as patients are unable to perceive the side of the world contralateral to the damage. Some patients, however, retain the ability to detect visual information within this blind region; this is known as blindsight. By studying the visual pathways that underlie this residual vision in patients, we can uncover additional aspects of the human visual system that likely contribute to normal visual function but cannot be revealed under physiological conditions. In this review, we discuss the residual abilities and neural activity that have been described in blindsight and the implications of these findings for understanding the intact system.

show abstract

Emotional context influences access of visual stimuli to anxious individuals’ awareness

Cited by 4 publications

References 49 publications

The effect of emotional state on visual detection: A signal detection analysis.

The effect of emotional state on visual detection: A signal detection analysis.

Mental Resilience and Coping With Stress: A Comprehensive, Multi-level Model of Cognitive Processing, Decision Making, and Behavior

Blindsight and Unconscious Vision: What They Teach Us about the Human Visual System

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About