@article{WieserHambachWeymar2018,
  author    = {Wieser, Matthias J. and Hambach, Anna and Weymar, Mathias},
  title     = {Neurophysiological correlates of attentional bias for emotional faces in socially anxious individuals},
  series = {Biological psychology},
  volume    = {132},
  journal   = {Biological psychology},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {0301-0511},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.01.004},
  pages     = {192 -- 201},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Visual search paradigms have provided evidence for the enhanced capture of attention by threatening faces. Especially in social anxiety, hypervigilance for threatening faces has been found repeatedly across behavioral paradigms, whose reliability however have been questioned recently. In this EEG study, we sought to determine whether the detection of threat (angry faces) is specifically enhanced in individuals with high (HSA) compared to low social anxiety (LSA). In a visual search paradigm, the N2pc component of the event-related brain potential was measured as an electrophysiological indicator of attentional selection. Twenty-one HSA and twenty-one LSA participants were investigated while searching for threatening or friendly targets within an array of neutral faces, or neutral targets within threatening or friendly distractors. Whereas no differences were found in reaction times, HSA showed significant higher detection rates for angry faces, whereas LSA showed a clear 'happiness bias'. HSA also showed enhanced N2pc amplitudes in response to emotional facial expressions (angry and happy), indicating a general attentional bias for emotional faces. Overall, the results show that social anxiety may be characterized not only by a spatial attentional bias for threatening faces, but for emotional faces in general. In addition, the results further demonstrate the utility of the N2pc component in capturing subtle attentional biases.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WendtMorriss2022,
  author    = {Wendt, Julia and Morriss, Jayne},
  title     = {An examination of intolerance of uncertainty and contingency instruction on multiple indices during threat acquisition and extinction training},
  series = {International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology},
  volume    = {177},
  journal   = {International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Amsterdam [u.a.]},
  issn      = {0167-8760},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.05.005},
  pages     = {171 -- 178},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Individuals who score high in self-reported Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) tend to find uncertainty aversive. Prior research has demonstrated that under uncertainty individuals with high IU display difficulties in updating learned threat associations to safety associations. Importantly, recent research has shown that providing contingency instructions about threat and safety contingencies (i.e. reducing uncertainty) to individuals with high IU promotes the updating of learned threat associations to safety associations. Here we aimed to conceptually replicate IU and contingency instruction-based effects by conducting a secondary analysis of self-reported IU, ratings, skin conductance, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data recorded during uninstructed/instructed blocks of threat acquisition and threat extinction training (n = 48). Generally, no significant associations were observed between self-reported IU and differential responding to learned threat and safety cues for any measure during uninstructed/instructed blocks of threat acquisition and threat extinction training. There was some tentative evidence that higher IU was associated with greater ratings of unpleasantness and arousal to the safety cue after the experiment and greater skin conductance response to the safety cue during extinction generally. Potential explanations for these null effects and directions for future research are discussed.},
  language  = {en}
}