Fearful faces heighten the cortical representation of contextual threat

Wieser, Matthias J.; Keil, Andreas

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.10.008

Cited by 72 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Conversely, participants who are on the lower end of the social anxiety continuum displayed a different and opposite pattern: face primes that indicated threat or ambiguity facilitated visual search. Results from low socially anxious participants are consistent with previous results with similar visual search tasks (Becker, 2009; Phelps, Ling & Carrasco, 2006; Wieser & Kiel, 2014; Quinlan & Johnson, 2011; Olatunji et al, 2011 Olatunji et al, 2015, Ferneyhough et al, 2013; Helfinstein et al, 2008). In all instances, for individuals who are higher on the anxiety continuum, priming with negative emotion stimuli decreased either attention bias or search efficiency.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Several studies have demonstrated that early visual processes are affected by emotion primes, fearful primes in particular, and these effects are lasting. Neural evidence from steady state visual evoked potentials (ssVEP), thought to originate in early visual cortical regions, has demonstrated that a fearful cue facilitates identification of threat (Wieser & Keil, 2014). When a scene containing threat is preceded by a fearful face expression, ssVEP's to the threat scene increase, compared to other scenes (Wieser & Keil, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Neural evidence from steady state visual evoked potentials (ssVEP), thought to originate in early visual cortical regions, has demonstrated that a fearful cue facilitates identification of threat (Wieser & Keil, 2014). When a scene containing threat is preceded by a fearful face expression, ssVEP's to the threat scene increase, compared to other scenes (Wieser & Keil, 2014). Phelps, Ling and Carrasco (2006) also demonstrated that fearful expressions have the capability of altering early vision, specifically, contrast sensitivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of emotion priming on visual search in socially anxious adults

Haas

Amso

2016

Cognition and Emotion

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This study examined the effects of emotion priming on visual search in participants characterized for different levels of social anxiety. Participants were primed with five facial emotions (angry, fear, happy, neutral, and surprised) and one scrambled face immediately prior to visual search trials involving finding a slanted colored line amongst distractors, as reaction times and accuracy to target detection were recorded. Results suggest that for individuals low in social anxiety, being primed with an angry, surprised, or fearful face facilitated visual search compared to being primed with scrambled, neutral or happy faces. However, these same emotions degraded visual search in participants with high levels of social anxiety. This study expands on previous research on the impact of emotion on attention, finding that amongst socially anxious individuals, the effects of priming with threat extend beyond initial attention capture or disengagement, degrading later visual search.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of emotion priming on visual search in socially anxious adults

Haas

Amso

2016

Cognition and Emotion

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“…Whalen et al, 2009, Wieser and Keil, 2014). Although other affective picture categories - such as mutilations - are also indirectly representing potential threat, we cannot provide inferences about a potential differential impact of threat predictability on direct threat.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commonalities and differences in the neural substrates of threat predictability in panic disorder and specific phobia

Klahn

Klinkenberg²,

Lueken

et al. 2017

NeuroImage: Clinical

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Different degrees of threat predictability are thought to induce either phasic fear or sustained anxiety. Maladaptive, sustained anxious apprehension is thought to result in overgeneralization of anxiety and thereby to contribute to the development of anxiety disorders. Therefore, differences in threat predictability have been associated with pathological states of anxiety with specific phobia (SP) representing phasic fear as heightened response to predictable threat, while panic disorder (PD) is characterized by sustained anxiety (unpredictable threat) and, as a consequence, overgeneralization of fear. The present study aimed to delineate commonalities and differences in the neural substrates of the impact of threat predictability on affective processing in these two anxiety disorders.Twenty PD patients, 20 SP patients and 20 non-anxious control subjects were investigated with an adapted NPU-design (no, predictable, unpredictable threat) using whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG).Group independent neural activity in the right dlPFC increased with decreasing threat predictability. PD patients showed a sustained hyperactivation of the vmPFC under threat and safety conditions. The magnitude of hyperactivation was inversely correlated with PDs subjective arousal and anxiety sensitivity. Both PD and SP patients revealed decreased parietal processing of affective stimuli. Findings indicate overgeneralization between threat and safety conditions and increased need for emotion regulation via the vmPFC in PD, but not SP patients. Both anxiety disorders showed decreased activation in parietal networks possibly indicating attentional avoidance of affective stimuli. Present results complement findings from fear conditioning studies and underline overgeneralization of fear, particularly in PD.

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“…To this end, Wieser and Keil (2014) investigated the mutual effects of facial expressions (fearful, neutral, happy) and affective visual context (pleasant, neutral, threat) by assigning two different flicker frequencies (12 vs. 15 Hz) to the face and the visual context scene. While processing of the centrally presented faces was unaffected, viewing fearful facial expressions amplified the ssVEP in response to threatening compared to other background contexts.…”

Section: Ssvep Studies Of Socio-emotional Cue Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steady‐state visual evoked potentials as a research tool in social affective neuroscience

2016

Self Cite

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Like many other primates, humans place a high premium on social information transmission and processing. One important aspect of this information concerns the emotional state of other individuals, conveyed by distinct visual cues such as facial expressions, overt actions, or by cues extracted from the situational context. A rich body of theoretical and empirical work has demonstrated that these socio-emotional cues are processed by the human visual system in a prioritized fashion, in the service of optimizing social behavior. Furthermore, socio-emotional perception is highly dependent on situational contexts and previous experience. Here, we review current issues in this area of research and discuss the utility of the steady-state visual evoked potential (ssVEP) technique for addressing key empirical questions. Methodological advantages and caveats are discussed with particular regard to quantifying time-varying competition among multiple perceptual objects, trial-by-trial analysis of visual cortical activation, functional connectivity, and the control of low-level stimulus features. Studies on facial expression and emotional scene processing are summarized, with an emphasis on viewing faces and other social cues in emotional contexts, or when competing with each other. Further, because the ssVEP technique can be readily accommodated to studying the viewing of complex scenes with multiple elements, it enables researchers to advance theoretical models of socio-emotional perception, based on complex, quasi-naturalistic viewing situations.

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Fearful faces heighten the cortical representation of contextual threat

Cited by 72 publications

References 70 publications

The effects of emotion priming on visual search in socially anxious adults

The effects of emotion priming on visual search in socially anxious adults

Commonalities and differences in the neural substrates of threat predictability in panic disorder and specific phobia

Steady‐state visual evoked potentials as a research tool in social affective neuroscience

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