The impact of threat of shock on memory for threat-irrelevant information: Evidence for a role of reduced semantic organization.

Research into the effects of acute anxiety on episodic memory has produced inconsistent findings, particularly for threat-neutral information. In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis that anxiety induced by threat of shock can interfere with the use of semantic-organizational processes that benefit memory. In Experiment 1, participants viewed and freely recalled two lists of semantically unrelated neutral words, one encoded in a threatening context (threat blocks) and one encoded without threat (safe blocks).

Looking on the bright side: the impact of ambivalent images on emotion regulation choice.

Previous research has found that people choose to reappraise low intensity images more often than high intensity images. However, this research does not account for image ambivalence, which is presence of both positive and negative cues in a stimulus. The purpose of this research was to determine differences in ambivalence in high intensity and low intensity images used in previous research (experiments 1-2), and if ambivalence played a role in emotion regulation choice in addition to intensity (experiments 3-4).

Fear in the mind's eye: the neural correlates of differential fear acquisition to imagined conditioned stimuli.

Mental imagery is involved in both the expression and treatment of fear-related disorders such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the neural correlates associated with the acquisition and generalization of differential fear conditioning to imagined conditioned stimuli are relatively unknown. In this study, healthy human participants (n = 27) acquired differential fear conditioning to imagined conditioned stimuli paired with a physical unconditioned stimulus (i.

Fear in the Theater of the Mind: Differential Fear Conditioning With Imagined Stimuli.

Many symptoms of anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder are elicited by fearful mental imagery. Yet little is known about how visual imagery of conditioned stimuli (CSs) affects the acquisition of differential fear conditioning. Across three experiments with younger human adults (Experiment 1: = 33, Experiment 2: = 27, Experiment 3: = 26), we observed that participants acquired differential fear conditioning to both viewed and imagined percepts serving as the CSs, as measured via self-reported fear and skin conductance responses.

Mental imagery can generate and regulate acquired differential fear conditioned reactivity.

Mental imagery is an important tool in the cognitive control of emotion. The present study tests the prediction that visual imagery can generate and regulate differential fear conditioning via the activation and prioritization of stimulus representations in early visual cortices. We combined differential fear conditioning with manipulations of viewing and imagining basic visual stimuli in humans.