1. Neural indices of orienting, discrimination, and conflict monitoring after contextual fear and safety learning.
- Author
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Taylor DL, Grant DM, Frosio KE, Kraft JD, Nagel KM, Deros DE, and White EJ
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Adult, Discrimination, Psychological physiology, Electroencephalography, Female, Humans, Male, Orientation physiology, Safety, Young Adult, Attention physiology, Conditioning, Classical physiology, Conflict, Psychological, Evoked Potentials physiology, Executive Function physiology, Fear physiology, Psychomotor Performance physiology
- Abstract
Investigations of fear conditioning have recently begun to evaluate contextual factors that affect attention-related processes. However, much of the extant literature does not evaluate how contextual fear learning influences neural indicators of attentional processes during goal-directed activity. The current study evaluated how early attention for task-relevant stimuli and conflict monitoring were affected when presented within task-irrelevant safety and threat contexts after fear learning. Participants (N = 72) completed a Flanker task with modified context before and after context-dependent fear learning. Flanker stimuli were presented in the same threat and safety contexts utilized in the fear learning task while EEG was collected. Results indicated increased early attention (N1) to flankers appearing in threat contexts and later increased neural indicators (P2) of attention to flankers appearing in safety contexts. Results of this study indicate that contextual fear learning modulates early attentional processes for task-relevant stimuli that appear in the context of safety and threat. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.
- Published
- 2020
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