<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Anxiety is characterized by a sustained state of heightened vigilance due to uncertain danger, producing increased attention to a perceived threat in one's environment. To further examine this exploited the temporal resolution afforded by event-related potentials to investigate the impact of predictability of threat on early perceptual activity. We recruited 28 participants and utilized a within-subject design to examine hypervigilance in anticipation of shock, unpleasant picture and unpleasant sound during a task with unpredictable, predictable and no threat. We investigated if habituation to stimuli was present by asking the participants to rate unpleasantness and intensity of the stimuli before and after the experiment. We observed hypervigilance in the unpredictable threat of shock. Habituation was observed for the visual stimuli. The present study suggests that unpredictability enhances attentional engagement with neutral somatosensory stimuli when the threat is of the same modality, meaning we observed the presence of hypervigilance which is a characteristic of anxiety.</p></abstract>

Anxiety is characterized by a sustained state of heightened vigilance due to uncertain danger, producing increased attention to a perceived threat in one's environment. To further examine this exploited the temporal resolution afforded by event-related potentials to investigate the impact of predictability of threat on early perceptual activity. We recruited 28 participants and utilized a within-subject design to examine hypervigilance in anticipation of shock, unpleasant picture and unpleasant sound during a task with unpredictable, predictable and no threat. We investigated if habituation to stimuli was present by asking the participants to rate unpleasantness and intensity of the stimuli before and after the experiment. We observed hypervigilance in the unpredictable threat of shock. Habituation was observed for the visual stimuli. The present study suggests that unpredictability enhances attentional engagement with neutral somatosensory stimuli when the threat is of the same modality, meaning we observed the presence of hypervigilance which is a characteristic of anxiety.

Expect the unexpected: Processing of sensory information in the anticipation of predictable and unpredictable threats

Research in Social Change

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Anxiety is characterized by a sustained state of heightened vigilance due to uncertain danger, producing increased attention to a perceived threat in one's...

Expect the unexpected: Processing of sensory information in the anticipation of predictable and unpredictable threats

Published Online: Jul 21, 2021

Page range: 80 - 115

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rsc-2019-0005

© 2019 Eva Koderman published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.