ArticlePsychophysiology2018
Startle reflex modulation during threat of shock and "threat" of reward.
Article in Psychophysiology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Aversive perception in a threat context: Separate and independent neural activation.Biological psychology · 2020Trial
- Wait for It: Defensive Reactivity and Individual Differences in Contrast Avoidance in the NPU-Reward Task.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Elevated unanticipated acoustic startle reactivity in dyslexia.Dyslexia (Chichester, England) · 2024Article
- Exploring the use of visual predictions in social scenarios while under anticipatory threat.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Dissociable impact of childhood trauma and deployment trauma on affective modulation of startle.Neurobiology of stress · 2021Article
- Does overloading cognitive resources mimic the impact of anxiety on temporal cognition?Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition · 2020Article
- Quantifying defence cascade responses as indicators of pig affect and welfare using computer vision methods.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Welfare-improving enrichments greatly reduce hens' startle responses, despite little change in judgment bias.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- (Why) Do You Like Scary Movies? A Review of the Empirical Research on Psychological Responses to Horror Films.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Review
- Social influences of error monitoring in adolescent girls.Psychophysiology · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
During threat of shock, the startle reflex is potentiated, suggesting modulation by defensive mobilization. To determine whether startle potentiation is specific to aversive anticipation, startle reflexes were measured in the context of either aversive or appetitive anticipation in a between-subject study. Participants wore a device on the wrist that could deliver electrical shock (n = 49), or vibrotactile stimulation indicating monetary reward (n = 48). Cues signaling "threat" or "safe" periods were presented alone, or accompanied by presentation of affective and neutral pictures on half of the trials. Results indicated that the startle reflex was significantly potentiated when anticipating either shock or reward, compared to safe periods, both when no picture was presented, as well as during picture viewing. The difference between threat and safety in both reflex magnitude and skin conductance changes was larger for those anticipating shock, suggesting that the aversive context was more motivationally engaging. The pattern of reflex modulation as a function of picture valence varied under threat and safety, but was identical in the shock and reward groups, consistent with a hypothesis that anticipation of either aversive or appetitive events prompts heightened perceptual vigilance, potentiating the acoustic startle reflex.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.