Projects per year
Abstract
Background
Emotion perception is essential to human interaction and relies on effective integration of emotional cues across sensory modalities. Despite initial evidence for anxiety-related biases in multisensory processing of emotional information, there is no research to date that directly addresses whether the mechanism of multisensory integration is altered by anxiety. Here, we compared audiovisual integration of emotional cues between individuals with low vs. high trait anxiety.
Methods
Participants were 62 young adults who were assessed on their ability to quickly and accurately identify happy, angry and sad emotions from dynamic visual-only, audio-only and audiovisual face and voice displays.
Results
The results revealed that individuals in the high anxiety group were more likely to integrate angry faces and voices in a statistically optimal fashion, as predicted by the Maximum Likelihood Estimation model, compared to low anxiety individuals. This means that high anxiety individuals achieved higher precision in correctly recognising anger from angry audiovisual stimuli compared to angry face or voice-only stimuli, and compared to low anxiety individuals.
Limitations
We tested a higher proportion of females, and although this does reflect the higher prevalence of clinical anxiety among females in the general population, potential sex differences in multisensory mechanisms due to anxiety should be examined in future studies.
Conclusions
Individuals with high trait anxiety have multisensory mechanisms that are especially fine-tuned for processing threat-related emotions. This bias may exhaust capacity for processing of other emotional stimuli and lead to overly negative evaluations of social interactions.
Emotion perception is essential to human interaction and relies on effective integration of emotional cues across sensory modalities. Despite initial evidence for anxiety-related biases in multisensory processing of emotional information, there is no research to date that directly addresses whether the mechanism of multisensory integration is altered by anxiety. Here, we compared audiovisual integration of emotional cues between individuals with low vs. high trait anxiety.
Methods
Participants were 62 young adults who were assessed on their ability to quickly and accurately identify happy, angry and sad emotions from dynamic visual-only, audio-only and audiovisual face and voice displays.
Results
The results revealed that individuals in the high anxiety group were more likely to integrate angry faces and voices in a statistically optimal fashion, as predicted by the Maximum Likelihood Estimation model, compared to low anxiety individuals. This means that high anxiety individuals achieved higher precision in correctly recognising anger from angry audiovisual stimuli compared to angry face or voice-only stimuli, and compared to low anxiety individuals.
Limitations
We tested a higher proportion of females, and although this does reflect the higher prevalence of clinical anxiety among females in the general population, potential sex differences in multisensory mechanisms due to anxiety should be examined in future studies.
Conclusions
Individuals with high trait anxiety have multisensory mechanisms that are especially fine-tuned for processing threat-related emotions. This bias may exhaust capacity for processing of other emotional stimuli and lead to overly negative evaluations of social interactions.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 101693 |
Journal | Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry |
Volume | 74 |
Early online date | 15 Sept 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 31 Mar 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by a PhD Studentship from the Medical Research Council (MRC) under award number 2110628 . The MRC did not play a role in the study design or conduct of the research, or the preparation of the article.
Keywords
- Anxiety
- Emotion
- Maximum likelihood estimation
- Multisensory processing
- Negative bias
- Race model
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'High Trait Anxiety Enhances Optimal Integration of Auditory and Visual Threat Cues'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Active
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Centre for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications (CAMERA) - 2.0
Campbell, N. (PI), Cosker, D. (PI), Bilzon, J. (CoI), Campbell, N. (CoI), Cazzola, D. (CoI), Colyer, S. (CoI), Cosker, D. (CoI), Lutteroth, C. (CoI), McGuigan, P. (CoI), O'Neill, E. (CoI), Petrini, K. (CoI), Proulx, M. (CoI) & Yang, Y. (CoI)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
1/11/20 → 31/10/25
Project: Research council
Datasets
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Dataset supporting the paper: High trait anxiety enhances optimal integration of auditory and visual threat cues
Heffer, N. (Creator), Gradidge, M. (Data Collector), Karl, A. (Supervisor), Ashwin, C. (Supervisor) & Petrini, K. (Supervisor), University of Bath, 15 Sept 2021
DOI: 10.15125/BATH-01023
Dataset