Learning to fear depends on emotion and gaze interaction: The role of self-relevance in fear learning

Is processing superiority a universal trait for all threats? Divergent impacts of fearful, angry, and disgusted faces on attentional capture

Fearful, angry, and disgusted facial expressions are evolutionarily salient and convey different types of threat signals. However, it remains unclear whether these three expressions impact sensory perception and attention in the same way. The present ERP study investigated the temporal dynamics underlying the processing of different types of threatening faces and the impact of attentional resources employed during a perceptual load task. Participants were asked to judge the length of bars superimposed over faces presented in the center of the screen. A mass univariate statistical approach was used to analyze the EEG data. Behaviorally, task accuracy was significantly reduced following exposure to fearful faces relative to neutral distractors, independent of perceptual load. The ERP results revealed that the P1 amplitude over the right hemisphere was found to be enhanced for fearful relative to disgusted faces, reflecting the rapid and coarse detection of fearful cues. The N170 responses elicited by fearful, angry, and disgusted faces were larger than those elicited by neutral faces, suggesting the largely automatic and preferential processing of threats. Furthermore, the early posterior negativity (EPN) component yielded increased responses to fearful and angry faces, indicating prioritized attention to stimuli representing acute threats. Additionally, perceptual load exerted a pronounced influence on the EPN and late positive potential (LPP), with larger responses observed in the low perceptual load condition, indicating goal-directed cognitive processing. Overall, the early sensory processing of fearful, angry, and disgusted faces is characterized by differential sensitivity in capturing attention automatically, despite the importance of these facial signals for survival. Fearful faces produce a strong interference effect and are processed with higher priority than angry and disgusted ones.

Prioritized neural processing of social threats during perceptual decision-making

Emotional signals, notably those signaling threat, benefit from prioritized processing in the human brain. Yet, it remains unclear whether perceptual decisions about the emotional, threat-related aspects of stimuli involve specific or similar neural computations compared to decisions about their non-threatening/non-emotional components. We developed a novel behavioral paradigm in which participants performed two different detection tasks (emotion vs. color) on the same, two-dimensional visual stimuli. First, electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in a cluster of central electrodes reflected the amount of perceptual evidence around 100 ms following stimulus onset, when the decision concerned emotion, not color. Second, participants' choice could be predicted earlier for emotion (240 ms) than for color (380 ms) by the mu (10 Hz) rhythm, which reflects motor preparation. Taken together, these findings indicate that perceptual decisions about threat-signaling dimensions of facial displays are associated with prioritized neural coding in action-related brain regions, supporting the motivational value of socially relevant signals.

Far from the threatening crowd: Generalisation of conditioned threat expectancy and fear in COVID-19 lockdown

Fear and anxiety are rarely confined to specific stimuli or situations. In fear generalisation, there is a spread of fear responses elicited by physically dissimilar generalisation stimuli (GS) along a continuum between danger and safety. The current study investigated fear generalisation with a novel online task using COVID-19-relevant stimuli (i.e., busy or quiet shopping street/mall scenes) during pandemic lockdown restrictions in the United Kingdom. Participants (N = 50) first completed clinically relevant trait measures before commencing a habituation phase, where two conditioned stimuli (CSs; i.e., a busy or quiet high street/mall scene) were presented. Participants then underwent fear conditioning where one conditioned stimulus (CS+) was followed by an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US; a loud female scream accompanied by a facial photograph of a female displaying a fearful emotion) and another (CS-) was not. In a test phase, six generalisation stimuli were presented where the US was withheld, and participants provided threat expectancy and fear ratings for all stimuli. Following successful conditioning, fear generalization was observed for both threat expectancy and fear ratings. Trait worry partially predicted generalised threat expectancy and COVID-19 fear strongly predicted generalised fear. In conclusion, a generalisation gradient was evident using an online remote generalisation task with images of busy/quiet streets during the pandemic. Worry and fear of COVID-19 predicted fear generalisation.

Predictors of depression: lifestyle choices during the pandemic

Our study intends to specify the impact of the singular pandemic stressors on the population and also quantify the contribution of different predictors of depression; some of them are stronger than others, and this research shows how the whole effect is divided into single items. This research included a structured online survey using data from 11,340 respondents from six European countries during the first months of the pandemic. The statistical analysis focused on how behavioural patterns appear in different groups of the population and how they mark the psychological wellbeing of these groups with regard to various factors. We targeted social media's role and analyzed the impact of its consumption on symptoms of depression in different groups divided by age and other characteristics. The analysis creates a mosaic of lifestyle choices and other characteristics that manifest different effects on depression inside selected groups whereas several groups generated by the cluster analysis are less vulnerable to their effect than others. Regarding our findings, the perceived reality through information sources and the manner of their processing seems to be more significant than the tangible reality (poor self-reported health correlated with depression more strongly than intrinsic health limitations).

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on consumer behavioural intention to purchase green products

This study examined the fear of COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on consumer behavioural intention to purchase green products. The data was collected from consumers of Malaysia in hypermarkets. A total of 491 respondents were analyzed using the partial least square technique. The results indicated that the fear of the COVID-19 epidemic has a significant impact on health concerns, social media information, intolerance of uncertainty, and personal relevance, which in turn affect consumers' behavioural intention to purchase green products. With a serial mediating effect the results identified that fear of COVID-19 epidemic is associated with behavioural intention to purchase the green product. The findings of this study are crucial for understanding the swings in the green product purchase behaviour due to the ongoing uncertainty of COVID-19 crisis.

Frequency-specific gaze modulation of emotional face processing in the human amygdala

Determining the social significance of emotional face expression is of major importance for adaptive behavior, and gaze direction provides critical information in this process. The amygdala is implicated in both emotion and gaze processing, but how and when it integrates expression and gaze cues remains unresolved. We tackled this question using intracranial electroencephalography in epileptic patients to assess both amygdala (n = 12) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC; n = 11) time-frequency evoked responses to faces with different emotional expressions and different gaze directions. As predicted, self-relevant threat signals (averted fearful and directed angry faces) elicited stronger amygdala activity than self-irrelevant threat (directed fearful and averted angry faces). Fear effects started at early latencies in both amygdala and OFC (~110 and 160 ms, respectively), while gaze direction effects and their interaction with emotion occurred at later latencies. Critically, the amygdala showed differential gamma band increases to fearful averted gaze (starting ~550 ms) and to angry directed gaze (~470 ms). Moreover, when comparing the 2 self-relevant threat conditions among them, we found higher gamma amygdala activity for averted fearful faces and higher beta OFC activity for angry directed faces. Together, these results reveal for the first time frequency-specific effects of emotion and gaze on amygdala and OFC neural activity.

Angry and fearful compared to happy or neutral faces as conditional stimuli in human fear conditioning: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Some previous research has shown stronger acquisition and impaired extinction of fear conditioned to angry or fearful compared to happy or neutral face conditional stimuli (CS) - a difference attributed to biological 'preparedness'. A systematic review and meta-analysis of fear conditioning studies comparing face CSs of differing expressions identified thirty studies, eighteen of which were eligible for meta-analysis. Skin conductance responses were larger to angry or fearful faces compared to happy or neutral faces during habituation, acquisition and extinction. Significant differences in differential conditioning between angry, fearful, neutral, and happy face CSs were also found, but differences were more prominent between angry and neutral faces compared to angry/fearful and happy faces. This is likely due to lower arousal elicited by neutral compared to happy faces, which may be more salient as CSs. The findings suggest there are small to moderate differences in differential conditioning when angry or fearful compared to happy or neutral faces are used as CSs. These findings have implications for fear conditioning study design and the preparedness theory.

Orthopaedic surgeons and covid- 19, the fear quotient "What are we really worried about?"

INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pandemic swiftly affected the world in a very short duration, and the orthopaedic surgery practice is no exception. Unprecedented lockdown was enforced in many countries including India as a first response to contain virus and its spread. That lead to a lot of confusion, fear, anxiety among general population as well as orthopaedic surgeons. We have studied the impact of this pandemic with fear as a denominator and how it affected the practice and health of orthopaedic surgeons.

METHODS

Cross-sectional web-based national survey distributed to orthopaedic surgeons by social media platform over period of one month from July 25, 2020 to August 25, 2020.

RESULTS

Among 1065 responders, 731 completed the survey. Among 1065 responders, 27.22% had orthopaedic practice experience ranging from 10 to 20 years while 21.48% had orthopaedic experience more than 20 years. Scientific literature as well as social media and news media contributed significantly to Covid-19 knowledge and fear. 98.88% were worried about contracting disease by themselves or by family members. 89.47% were worried due to financial loss due to pandemic. 37 (5.06%) surgeons had a FCV- 19 scale (Fear for Covid-19 scale) score more than 60 (8.2%) while 291 (39.8%) had 41-60 and score was <40 in 403 (55.12%) surgeons. According to survey vaccine availability and emergence of effective drug and treatment protocol will alleviate most of the concerns. 70.81% felt mildly depressed during pandemic times while 65.33% surgeons expressed interest in joining discussion groups and meetings encouraging positive thoughts.

CONCLUSION

Financial liabilities and well-being of self and family are important factors which induced fear of Covid-19 among orthopaedic surgeons. Positive discussions and timely information from credible sources regarding prevention, diagnosis and management and will reduce psychological burden due to Covid-19, also this will help to form policies for future pandemics.

Fear of COVID-19 for Individuals and Family Members: Indications from the National Cross-Sectional Study of the EPICOVID19 Web-Based Survey

The study analyzed the association of the fear of contagion for oneself and for family members (FMs) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with demographic and socioeconomic status (SES) and health factors. The study was performed within the EPICOVID19 web-based Italian survey, involving adults from April-June 2020. Out of 207,341 respondents, 95.9% completed the questionnaire (60% women with an average age of 47.3 vs. 48.9 years among men). The association between fear and demographic and SES characteristics, contacts with COVID-19 cases, nasopharyngeal swab, self-perceived health, flu vaccination, chronic diseases and specific symptoms was analyzed by logistic regression model; odds ratios adjusted for sex, age, education and occupation were calculated (aORs). Fear for FMs prevailed over fear for oneself and was higher among women than men. Fear for oneself decreased with higher levels of education and in those who perceived good health. Among those vaccinated for the flu, 40.8% responded they had feelings of fear for themselves vs. 34.2% of the not vaccinated. Fear increased when diseases were declared and it was higher when associated with symptoms such as chest pain, olfactory/taste disorders, heart palpitations (aORs > 1.5), lung or kidney diseases, hypertension, depression and/or anxiety. Trends in fear by region showed the highest percentage of positive responses in the southern regions. The knowledge gained from these results should be used to produce tailored messages and shared public health decisions.

Fear of the coronavirus (COVID-19): Predictors in an online study conducted in March 2020

Fear is an adaptive response in the presence of danger. However, when threat is uncertain and continuous, as in the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, fear can become chronic and burdensome. To identify predictors of fear of the coronavirus, we conducted an online survey (N = 439) three days after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic (i.e., between March 14 and 17, 2020). Fear of the coronavirus was assessed with the newly developed Fear of the Coronavirus Questionnaire (FCQ) consisting of eight questions pertaining to different dimensions of fear (e.g., subjective worry, safety behaviors, preferential attention), and an open-ended question. The predictors included psychological vulnerability factors (i.e., intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and health anxiety), media exposure, and personal relevance (i.e., personal health, risk for loved ones, and risk control). We found four predictors for the FCQ in a simultaneous regression analysis: health anxiety, regular media use, social media use, and risks for loved ones (R² = .37). Furthermore, 16 different topics of concern were identified based participants' open-ended responses, including the health of loved ones, health care systems overload, and economic consequences. We discuss the relevance of our findings for managing people's fear of the coronavirus.

Fear of the coronavirus (COVID-19): Predictors in an online study conducted in March 2020

Fear is an adaptive response in the presence of danger. However, when threat is uncertain and continuous, as in the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, fear can become chronic and burdensome. To identify predictors of fear of the coronavirus, we conducted an online survey (N = 439) three days after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic (i.e., between March 14 and 17, 2020). Fear of the coronavirus was assessed with the newly developed Fear of the Coronavirus Questionnaire (FCQ) consisting of eight questions pertaining to different dimensions of fear (e.g., subjective worry, safety behaviors, preferential attention), and an open-ended question. The predictors included psychological vulnerability factors (i.e., intolerance of uncertainty, worry, and health anxiety), media exposure, and personal relevance (i.e., personal health, risk for loved ones, and risk control). We found four predictors for the FCQ in a simultaneous regression analysis: health anxiety, regular media use, social media use, and risks for loved ones (R² = .37). Furthermore, 16 different topics of concern were identified based participants' open-ended responses, including the health of loved ones, health care systems overload, and economic consequences. We discuss the relevance of our findings for managing people's fear of the coronavirus.

Achievement motivation modulates Pavlovian aversive conditioning to goal-relevant stimuli

Pavlovian aversive conditioning is a fundamental form of learning helping organisms survive in their environment. Previous research has suggested that organisms are prepared to preferentially learn to fear stimuli that have posed threats to survival across evolution. Here, we examined whether enhanced Pavlovian aversive conditioning can occur to stimuli that are relevant to the organism's concerns beyond biological and evolutionary considerations, and whether such preferential learning is modulated by inter-individual differences in affect and motivation. Seventy-two human participants performed a spatial cueing task where the goal-relevance of initially neutral stimuli was experimentally manipulated. They subsequently underwent a differential Pavlovian aversive conditioning paradigm, in which the goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant stimuli served as conditioned stimuli. Skin conductance response was recorded as an index of the conditioned response and participants' achievement motivation was measured to examine its impact thereon. Results show that achievement motivation modulated Pavlovian aversive learning to goal-relevant vs. goal-irrelevant stimuli. Participants with high achievement motivation more readily acquired a conditioned response to goal-relevant compared with goal-irrelevant stimuli than did participants with lower achievement motivation. However, no difference was found between goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant stimuli during extinction. These findings suggest that stimuli that are detected as relevant to the organism can induce facilitated Pavlovian aversive conditioning even though they hold no inherent threat value and no biological evolutionary significance, and that the occurrence of such learning bias is critically dependent on inter-individual differences in the organism's concerns, such as achievement motivation.

Shared Mechanisms May Support Mnemonic Benefits from Self-Referencing and Emotion

The literatures on episodic memory for self-referential and emotional information have proceeded relatively independently, and most studies examining the effects of age on these memory processes have been interpreted within domain-specific frameworks. However, there is increasing evidence for shared mechanisms that contribute to episodic memory benefits in these two domains. We review this evidence and propose a model that incorporates overlapping as well as domain-specific contributions to episodic memory encoding of self-referential and emotional material. We discuss the implications for understanding the relatively intact memory of older adults for these classes of stimuli, and conclude with suggestions for future research to test key tenets and extensions of this shared-process model.

Instructed fear stimuli bias visual attention

We investigated whether stimuli merely instructed to be fear-relevant can bias visual attention, even when the fear relation was never experienced before. Participants performed a dot-probe task with pictures of naturally fear-relevant (snake or spider) or -irrelevant (bird or butterfly) stimuli. Instructions indicated that two pictures (one naturally fear-relevant and one fear-irrelevant) could be followed by an electrical stimulation (i.e., instructed fear). In reality, no stimulation was administered. During the task, two pictures were presented on each side of the screen, after which participants had to determine as fast as possible on which side a black dot appeared. After a first phase, fear was reinstated by instructing participants that the device was not connected but now was (reinstatement phase). Participants were faster when the dot appeared on a location where an instructed fear picture was presented. This effect seemed independent of whether picture content was naturally fear-relevant, but was only found in the first half of each phase, suggesting rapid extinction due to the absence of stimulation, and rapid re-evaluation after reinstatement. A second experiment similarly showed that instructed fear biases attention, even when participants were explicitly instructed that no stimulation would be given during the dot-probe task. Together, these findings demonstrate that attention can be biased towards instructed fear stimuli, even when these fear relations were never experienced. Future studies should test whether this is specific to fear, or can be observed for all instructions that change the relevance of a given stimulus.

Early Emotional Attention is Impacted in Alzheimer's Disease: An Eye-Tracking Study

Emotional deficits have been repetitively reported in Alzheimer's disease (AD) without clearly identifying how emotional processing is impaired in this pathology. This paper describes an investigation of early emotional processing, as measured by the effects of emotional visual stimuli on a saccadic task involving both pro (PS) and anti (AS) saccades. Sixteen patients with AD and 25 age-matched healthy controls were eye-tracked while they had to quickly move their gaze toward a positive, negative, or neutral image presented on a computer screen (in the PS condition) or away from the image (in the AS condition). The age-matched controls made more AS mistakes for negative stimuli than for other stimuli, and triggered PSs toward negative stimuli more quickly than toward other stimuli. In contrast, patients with AD showed no difference with regard to the emotional category in any of the tasks. The present study is the first to highlight a lack of early emotional attention in patients with AD. These results should be taken into account in the care provided to patients with AD, since this early impairment might seriously degrade their overall emotional functioning.

The effect of constraining eye-contact during dynamic emotional face perception-an fMRI study

Eye-contact modifies how we perceive emotions and modulates activity in the social brain network. Here, using fMRI, we demonstrate that adding a fixation cross in the eye region of dynamic facial emotional stimuli significantly increases activation in the social brain of healthy, neurotypical participants when compared with activation for the exact same stimuli observed in a free-viewing mode. In addition, using PPI analysis, we show that the degree of amygdala connectivity with the rest of the brain is enhanced for the constrained view for all emotions tested except for fear, and that anxiety and alexithymia modulate the strength of amygdala connectivity for each emotion differently. Finally, we show that autistic traits have opposite effects on amygdala connectivity for fearful and angry emotional expressions, suggesting that these emotions should be treated separately in studies investigating facial emotion processing.

Facing two faces: Defense activation varies as a function of personal relevance

It can be unsettling to be watched by a group of people, and when they express anger or hostility, this can prime defensive behavior. In contrast, when others smile at us, this may be comforting. This study tested to which degree the impact of facial expressions (happy, neutral, and angry) varies with the personal relevance of a social situation. Modelling a triadic situation, two faces looked either directly at the participant, faced each other, or they were back to back. Results confirmed that this variation constitutes a gradient of personal relevance (directed frontally > towards > away), as reflected by corresponding defensive startle modulation and autonomic nervous system activity. This gradient was particularly pronounced for angry faces and it was steeper in participants with higher levels of social anxiety. Thus, sender-recipient constellations modulate the processing of facial emotions in favor of adequate behavioral responding (e.g., avoidance) in group settings.