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Experiential avoidance and aversive visual images: Response delays and event-related potentials on a simple matching task

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Abstract

In Experiment 1, participants high (n=15) or low in avoidance (n=14), as measured by the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, completed a simple matching task that required them to choose whether or not to look at an aversive visual image. Only the high-avoidance participants took longer to emit a correct response that produced an aversive rather than a neutral picture. Additionally, the high-avoiders reported greater levels of anxiety following the experiment even though they rated the aversive images as less unpleasant and less emotionally arousing than their low-avoidant counterparts. In Experiment 2, three groups, representing high-, mid- and low-avoidance (n=6 in each) repeated the matching task with the additional recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). The findings of Experiment 1 were replicated in terms of reaction times and subjective ratings. The ERPs confirmed that the participants attended to the content of the images and differentiated between the aversive and neutral image types. The ERPs also showed significantly greater negativity for electrodes over the left hemisphere relative to the midline for only the high-experiential avoidance (EA) group. Given the left hemisphere dominance for language, the data suggest that the high-EA group engaged in verbal strategies to regulate their emotional responses.

Introduction

According to Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson (1999) an individual pre-disposed towards experiential avoidance (high-EA) may attempt to suppress any unwanted thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations, or actively avoid any situations that may elicit these unwanted private events. Recent studies have sought to determine if individuals predisposed towards high-EA, as measured by the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ; Hayes et al., 2004), experience greater levels of anxiety and affective distress, relative to low-EA individuals, when exposed to experimentally induced stressors.

These studies have employed physically aversive stimuli (e.g., inhalations of CO2: Feldner, Zvolensky, Eifert, & Spira, 2003, and cold-presser tasks: Feldner et al., 2006) and thus it could be argued that the results may not generalise to non-physical stressors, such as emotionally challenging visual material. One recent study, however, has addressed this issue (Sloan, 2004). The participants were shown a series of six brief film clips that were intended to elicit pleasant, unpleasant or neutral emotional states. Consistent with the findings of Feldner et al. (2003) the high-EA group reported greater negative affect following two of the three unpleasant film clips (fear, disgust) compared to the low-EA group. In contrast to these self-reports, the high-EA group responded to the fear and disgust film clips with decreased heart rates relative to the low-EA group; neutral film clips produced the opposite effect (i.e., elevated rates in the former group). Sloan suggested that these response patterns might reflect ongoing attempts by the high-EA individuals to regulate their internal experiences leading to greater levels of arousal during resting or neutral periods.

Experiment 1 of the current study sought to extend the Sloan (2004) research by using a computerised procedure that required overt behavioural responding by participants, which provided them with control over the presentation of the visual material (i.e., aversive or neutral pictures). Two measures of trial-by-trial avoidance were recorded; type of image selected and reaction times. Avoiding an aversive stimulus by deliberately selecting the neutral image was associated with negative feedback (i.e. participants were told they had made the ‘wrong’ choice). Recent findings suggest that avoidant individuals may be more sensitive to potential negative social consequences within an experiment (McAuliffe, 2004), and it was predicted that this may function to override avoidance of the aversive images. In contrast, the time taken to select an aversive versus a neutral image did not lead to any negative feedback, and thus it was predicted that reaction time would prove to be the more robust measure of avoidance in the current study. In short, there should be no difference between high- and low-EA groups on the image-selected measure, but the former group should show longer average reaction times when selecting an aversive image. Experiment 2 sought to replicate and extend Experiment 1 and incorporated electroencephalograms (EEG) as a measure of emotional processing.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were selected on the basis of their scores on the 8-item AAQ (note, this version of the AAQ scores in the opposite direction to the original AAQ). Using the same criteria as Feldner et al. (2003), 29 high-EA participants were identified from a pool of undergraduates (N=144); 15 agreed to participate (9 female; M age=22.6; M AAQ=32.28 SD=2.614). Fourteen individuals were recruited for the low-EA group (11 female; M age=23.29 years, M AAQ=47.86 SD 2.57).

Questionnaires

Experiential avoidance: The

Experiment 2

The second experiment replicated the matching task supplemented by the use of event-related potentials (ERPs) as a psycho-physiological measure that correlates with the processing of emotionally arousing stimuli. A recent study demonstrated that both pleasant and unpleasant pictures, taken from the IAPS, prompted a marked positive-going slow waveform, in contrast to the distinctly more negative slow-wave response to neutral pictures (Cuthbert, Schupp, Bradley, Birbaumer, & Lang, 2000).

At the

General discussion

Consistent with experimental predictions, the reaction time measure but not image-selected discriminated between high- and low/mid-EA groups. Specifically, the high-EA groups took significantly longer to emit a correct response that produced an aversive relative to a neutral image. Conversely, the reaction times of the low- and mid-EA groups did not differ significantly between aversive and neutral stimuli. Insofar as a response delay (that produces an aversive stimulus) may be interpreted as a

Acknowledgements

The preparation of this article was supported by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and the Social Sciences, through a Government of Ireland Scholarship. Our thanks go to Steve Hayes and Denise Sloan for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.

References (18)

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