Behavioral inhibition system sensitivity moderates audio-visual neutral information processing

Misperception of other people's intention and emotions could cause and worsen interpersonal problems, thereby increasing the likelihood of developing depression and anxiety disorders among individuals who are already at risk for those conditions. Although multisensory emotional information is ubiquitous in the real world, most previous research focused exclusively on processing facial expressions. Addressing this gap, the current study examined the association between behavioral inhibition system (BIS) sensitivity and audio-visual emotional information processing. Sensitive BIS suggests heightened sensitivity to anxiety provoking stimuli and is a known risk factor for developing emotional disorders. We hypothesized that higher BIS levels would be associated with inefficient multisensory emotional processing, which might be pronounced for neutral stimuli.

Seventy-six undergraduates (40 women) completed a task while target faces (disgusted, happy, and neutral) were rendered invisible, and a voice (disgusted, happy, and neutral) or no voice was presented simultaneously. Participants' reaction times to indicate the location of the interocularly suppressed faces were measured.

Individuals with lower BIS levels detected neutral faces faster when accompanied by neutral voices than by no voice; individuals with higher BIS levels, however, did not benefit from congruent auditory information when processing neutral faces.

The current study cannot address whether the finding is due to attentional biases, interpretation biases, or both in individuals who are prone to become anxious.

Multisensory processing of neutral information is modulated by individuals' propensity to become anxious.