Stimulus processing bias in anxiety-related fear generalisation: drift-diffusion modelling and subgroups differences

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• Fear generalization involves overgeneralizing fear responses to similar stimuli.
• Anxiety is linked to excessive fear responses and altered threat perception.
• Understanding the computational mechanisms of threat judgment in fear generalization is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how anxiety biases threat judgments in a fear generalization paradigm.
• To explore differences in generalization gradients across participant subgroups.
• To apply computational modeling (drift-diffusion model) to interpret these differences.

Main Methods:

• A binary fear generalization judgment task was used to collect behavioral data.
• Participants were clustered based on their response patterns.
• Hierarchical drift-diffusion modeling analyzed reaction time distributions and individual scores.

Main Results:

• State anxiety and stimulus similarity both facilitated threat judgments.
• State anxiety weakened the influence of stimulus similarity on evidence gathering.
• These anxiety effects were specific to certain participant subgroups.

Conclusions:

• Anxiety significantly interacts with stimulus similarity in shaping threat judgments.
• Individual differences in strategy preference play a key role in fear generalization.
• Computational modeling provides insights into the cognitive processes underlying anxiety and fear generalization.