Cortical correlates of the processing of feared and fear relevant stimuli [Elektronische Ressource] : evidence from event related potential studies comparing phobic and non-phobic subjects / von Iris-Tatjana Kolassa

Iris-Tatjana Kolassa

Sujets

• Psychologie
• Gesundheit

Informations

• Publié par: friedrich-schiller-universitat_jena
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 25
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 20 Mo

Extrait

Cortical Correlates of the Processing of
Feared and Fear-Relevant Stimuli
Evidence from Event-Related Potential Studies Comparing
Phobic and Non-Phobic Subjects
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil.)
vorgelegt dem Rat der Fakulta¨t fur¨ Sozial- und
Verhaltenswissenschaften der Friedrich-Schiller-Universit¨at Jena
von
Dipl.-Psych. Iris-Tatjana Kolassa
geboren am 8. Dezember 1978 in Mannheim1. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang H.R. Miltner
2. Gutachter: PD Dr. Frauke Musial
Tag des Kolloquiums: 25.8.2004Thesamethrill, thesameaweandmystery, comesagain
and again when we look at any question deeply enough.
With more knowledge comes a deeper, more wonderful
mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. Never
concerned that the answer may prove disappointing,
with pleasure and confidence we turn over each new
stonetofindunimaginedstrangenessleadingontomore
wonderful questions and mysteries – certainly a grand
adventure!
Richard Feynman (1908–1988), Nobel Prize in Physics 1965
Excerpt from a public address “About The Value of Science” given
at the 1955 autumn meeting of the National Academy of Sciences
Published in Feynman (1988)
Successisnothingmorethangoingfromfailuretofailure
with undiminished enthusiasm.
Winston ChurchillAcknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank my academic advisor Professor Dr. Wolfgang H.R.
Miltner for his help, advice, and support while writing this thesis. I am very grateful
that he always supported my ideas and encouraged my plans. Thanks are also due
to PD Dr. Frauke Musial for her time and patience in answering my questions. Her
assistance and advice were most helpful, and her confidence in me lifted my spirits in
periods of doubt.
Thisworkhasalsobenefitedfromtheinvaluablehelpofmanyofmycolleaguesfromthe
Biological and Clinical Psychology research group at the Friedrich Schiller University
of Jena. I would like to thank Dr. Ralf Trippe for introducing me to the realm of
EEG data analysis, for his friendly support and his good advice. Thanks are also
due to Alexander Mohr, Sandra Riske, Arlette Buchman, Katharina St¨ossel, and Jan
Sauerbrey for their help in recruiting subjects and conducting the studies. I am deeply
indebted to Dr. Stefan Dilger for conducting the training of social competences with
our social phobics and for teaching me how to do it myself. Furthermore, many thanks
are due to Dr. Ivailo Partchev for his help with the modified Rasch model used in
Experiment III. Finally, I would like to thank all my colleagues for making my time in
Jena a pleasant one.
Furthermore, I would like to thank the German National Scholarship Foundation (Stu-
dienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) for awarding me a scholarship not only during my
studies at Konstanz University but also for this thesis project. The monetary and
non-monetary support I received helped form my personality and my occupational and
private life in many respects.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank cordially my dear husband Stephan who
supported and encouraged me in every phase of this thesis. Thanks for programming
Aall the paradigms, for your support with LT X, and for proofreading earlier versionsE
of this thesis, not forgetting your patience in bearing with my thesis-induced mood
swings.
The studies were funded by the DFG grant Mi265/6-1 awarded to Prof. Dr. Wolf-
gang H.R. Miltner.Contents
List of Abbreviations v
Zusammenfassung 1
Abstract 5
1. Introduction 9
1.1. Fear and Phobias, Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1.1. Psychopathology of Spider Phobia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.1.2. Psychopathology of Social Phobia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.1.3. Why Should One Study Specific Phobia of Animals? . . . . . . 16
1.2. Evolution and Phobias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.2.1. The Unequal Distribution of Fears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.2.2. Innate Fears: The Non-Associative Account . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.2.3. Preparedness Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3. Cognitive Biases in Anxiety Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3.1. Attentional Bias in Phobia: Unconscious Preattentive Mecha-
nisms in the Activation of Phobic Fear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.3.2. Emotional Stroop Interference as a Measure of Attentional Bias 26
1.3.3. Emotional Stroop Interference in Animal Phobics . . . . . . . . 30
1.3.4. Inconsistencies in Studies Investigating the Attentional Bias in
Animal Phobics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.3.5. Models Accounting for the Attentional Bias in Phobias . . . . . 35
1.4. The Neuronal Basis of the (Emotional) Stroop Interference . . . . . . . 42
1.4.1. Brain Regions Involved in Color-Word Stroop . . . . . . . . . . 43
1.4.2. What Do We Know About Emotional Stroop Interference? . . . 48
1.5. The Processing of Emotional and Fear-Relevant Stimuli . . . . . . . . . 50
i1.5.1. Results of Functional Imaging Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
1.5.2. Results of Event-Related Potential Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.6. The Late Positive Complex: Multiple P3 Components . . . . . . . . . . 55
1.6.1. Influences on P3 Amplitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
1.6.2. I on P3 Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
1.6.3. Theoretical Interpretations of the P3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
1.7. The Aims of This Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2. Experiment I – Pictorial Emotional Stroop Paradigm 63
2.1. Introduction: Aims and Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.2. Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.2.1. Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.2.2. Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.2.3. Subjective Ratings of Valence and Arousal . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.2.4. Assessment of EEG and Other Psychophysiological Variables . . 71
2.2.5. Analyses of Dependent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
2.3.1. Performance and Reaction Times in the Stroop Task . . . . . . 77
2.3.2. Heart Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.3.3. Event-Related Potentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
2.4.1. Summary of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
2.4.2. Possible Causes for the Absence of Stroop Interference . . . . . 97
2.4.3. How Findings Fit in Previous Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
2.4.4. Suggestions for Future Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3. ExperimentII–PictorialEmotionalStroopParadigmwithSchematic
Stimuli 109
3.1. Introduction: Aims and Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.2. Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.2.1. Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.2.2. Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
3.2.3. Subjective Ratings of Valence and Arousal . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.2.4. Assessment of EEG and Further Psychophysiological Variables . 114
3.2.5. Analyses of Dependent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
3.3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
ii3.3.1. Performance and Reaction Times in the Stroop Task . . . . . . 117
3.3.2. Heart Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3.3.3. Event-Related Potentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.4.1. Summary of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.4.2. ComparisonsofFindingsintheEmotionalStroopParadigmwith
Schematic and Non-Schematic Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
3.4.3. Suggestions for Future Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4. Experiment III – Which Properties Make a Spider Fear-Relevant? –
A First Approach 137
4.1. Introduction: Aims and Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.2. Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.2.1. Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.2.2. Assessment of Valence and Arousal Ratings . . . . . . . . . . . 143
4.2.3. Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
4.2.4. Assessment of EEG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.2.5. Analyses of Dependent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
4.3.1. Valence and Arousal Ratings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
4.3.2. Performance and Reaction Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
4.3.3. Classification Frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4.3.4. Event-Related Potentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
4.4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .