Is the Detection of Threat Automatic - Essay Example

Is the detection of threat automatic? Studies have shown that people are actually born with automatic threat detection mechanisms for threatening stimuli. For instance, when shown with pictures of threatening elements such as spiders and non-threatening elements such as butterfly, people would immediately identify the threatening element than the others.These threatening stimuli are, wrote Lidwell, Holden and Butler (2003), detected more quickly than non-threatening stimuli and are thought to have evolutionary origins. (p. 192) This paper will explore this subject and establish whether the detection of threat as automatic has factual and scientific evidences because if the theory is true, then it provides a selective advantage to humans in terms of survival and its performance in the evolution of species. Background An exploration of the automatic detection of threat is best appreciated within the broader context of studies of information processing in anxiety disorders generally. It is assumed that people vary in their proneness to experience anxiety, and that the vulnerable ones become hypervigilant when entering a novel or potentially intimidating circumstance. It was Richard Swinson (2001) who introduced this concept, stressing how it supposedly promotes the rapid and global scanning, which is transformed to a semblance of an intense, narrow focus in the event that a threat is detected. He referred to Beck, Emery and Greenberg’s (1985) work, who for their part, explained that “the detection of a threat triggers an inhibition of ongoing behavior, often characterized by attentive stillness and high arousal. The relevant cognitive schemas are activated and used to evaluate and assign meaning to the event; the perceived information, whether from external or internal source, is then interpreted as signifying safety or danger.” (p. 55) In this process, safe means the resumption of the ongoing behavior but that if there is danger of harm, anxiety arises and maybe followed by escape, avoidance, coping or compulsive and neutralizing behaviors. In order to understand how the threat detection system works, see Matthews’ illustration of the flow of the process (Fig. 1). Fig. 1: Automatic and Strategic Processes. (Source: Matthews, p. 16) According to Andrew Matthews, detection of threat can occur automatically and thus at non-conscious levels. (p. 16) This is supposedly more applicable to anxious individuals who have less control over the processing of detected cues and that the threat evaluation system activates stored meanings that further activate the perceived threat Taking from Matthews’ theory, anxiety disorders become the consequence of automatic threat detection capability. The idea is that when there is the presence of stressful events or cognitive load in anxiety-vulnerable individuals, attempts at strategic control is overwhelmed and there is the inability to inhibit threat representations. Literature Review Various studies and experiments have already presented several perspectives and analysis on automatic threat detection. Most of these, particularly those that use the emotional target detection paradigm, agree that anxiety, stress and other emotional and cognitive load play significant roles in threat detection. For example, Foa and McNally (1986) presented evidences that suggest that enhanced detection of threat stimuli can indeed be triggered by anxious mood state. In support of this, a case was cited by Kim Kirsner and Craig Speelman that show a scenario wherein fear relevant words are presented to unattended ear during a dichotic listening task and that these are detected more reliably by agoraphobics, social phobics, and obssessional patients. (p. 237) In regard to normal subjects, there’s the study conducted by A. Byrne and M.W Eysenck (1995) which found that people with high levels of trait anxiety were faster than those with low level of trait anxiety to detect threat. (cited in Kirsner and Speelman, p. 237) One of the most credible and supposedly superior experimental paradigms used in the study of threat detection is the visual dot probe task. It has proven that it can detect attentional bias to stimuli independent of a possible response bias and, in addition, it is a multiple stimulus attentional task that makes different cognitive processing demands from single stimulus tasks such as the Stroop. (Clark, Beck & Aford 1999, p. 184) The method, hence, could provide a useful snapshot of attentional allocation towards emotional stimuli. This is achieved by computing the difference in reaction times and/or accuracy rate for dot-probe targets appearing at invalid minus valid locations. (Anders et al. 2006, p. 71) In an experiment using this method, it was found that clinically depressed but not anxious patients had a significant attentional bias or vigilance for social threat words, whereas the latter group showed greater vigilance for physically threatening words. (Clark, Beck and Alford, p. 184) Discussion Now, how could we say that this threat detection is automatic? Proponents would say it is automatic because the threat stimuli are unconscious and unintentional. On the other hand, critics will say it is not because the process involves bias, then conscious, deliberate and cognitive thinking. I would like to use Beck and Clark’s model of multilevel processes involved in cognitive bias in anxiety to explore the two dimensions to this subject. For these authors, the processing model that accounts for bias involves three stages: Firstly, an initial recognition of the threat valence of stimuli, which is controlled by an automatic orienting mode because it is driven more by perception than conceptualization. The second stage involves the activation of a primal threat mode, which involves a mixture of both automatic and strategic processing. Finally, information processing becomes completely strategic, slow, effortful and schema-driven, and reflects a full analysis of the relevance of the stimulus for one’s own well-being, and also one’s own coping resources to respond to the potential threat. (cited in Hecker, Dutke & Sedek 2000, p. 215) The first stage in the model underscores the primacy of automatic detection. During the second stage, the semantic analysis of the stimuli begins, and, though processing may be undertaken subconsciously, there is a possibility that the person involved is aware of the products. Furthermore, the third stage supports the second with its predictive inferencing. Thus, the constructive processes involved in the bias require cognitive resources and time. However, the allocation of these resources could be driven not only voluntarily but that it could be driven involuntarily as well. And so we are left with the idea that the bias may not meet the awareness and intentionality requirements. Andrew Matthews (2004) stressed that in the interpretative stage, multiple possible meanings are potentially activated upon cue detection (especially in response to ambiguous material), and a particular type of competition commences. He said that, “although there is some degree of control over this stage of processing, the input from the threat-evaluation system activates stored meanings that further activate the perceived threat.” (p. 17) This is particularly true in the case of anxious individuals. The significance of this fact is that anxiety largely has to do with non-conscious, perceptual processing that leads to avoidance or escape and is driven by a threat-evaluation system that does not make use of verbal encoding. What the bias, conceptual processing, response deliberation, among other seemingly conscious process in threat detection tell us is that automatic processing underscore the fact that automatic processing can work in parallel across many different sensory channels without loss in efficiency. It is involuntary, in the sense that “it is hard to suppress consciously once it is initiated; it does not interfere with focal attention; it is not easily distracted by attended activities; and, it is typically not available for conscious introspection.” (Lewis and Haviland-Jones 2004, p. 713) Here, what is clear is that, for the automatic threat detection to be activated, there should be a selective attentional bias favoring threat, particularly when a person enters into a situation that is unfamiliar or has a history of threat and danger. This so-called selective attention, is according to Swinson, a combination of conscious, deliberate, scanning and automatic, nonconscious scanning. (p. 63) These variables again highlight how control switch from automatic to strategic information processing. In light of the survival contingencies implied by potential hazards, dangers and threats both in the external and internal environments, it is a natural assumption that stimuli implying some degree of threat should have selection priority for strategic processing. This is why the early and automatic detection of threat is very important in survival and that appropriately apprehensive anxiety has obvious functional significance, prompting many authors to tie it with evolutionary considerations. The automatic nature of threat detection can, hence, be considered as part of our defense responses, which have evolved because they were functional abilities that have kept us away from being dead and extinct. References Anders, S., Ende, G., Junghofer, M., Kissler, J., and Wildgruber, D. (2006) Understanding emotions. Elsevier. Beck, A., Emery, G., and Greenberg, R. (1985). Anxiety disorders and phobias: a cognitive perspective. Basic Books. Clark, D., Beck, A., and Alford, rad. (1999). Scientific foundations of cognitive theory and therapy of depression. John Wiley and Sons. Foa, E.G. and McNally, R.J. (1986). Sensitivity to feared stimuli in obsessive-compulsives: A dichotic listening analysis. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 10, 477-486. Kirsner, K. and Speelman, C. (1998). Implicit and explicit mental processes. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hecker, U., Dutke, S., and Sedek, G. (2000). Generative mental processes and cognitive resources: integrative research on adaptation and control. Springer. Lewis, M. and Haviland-Jones, J. (2004). Handbook of emotions. Guilford Press. Lidwell, W., Holden, K. and Butler, J. (2003). Universal principles of design: 100 ways to enhance usability, influence perception, increase appeal, make better design decisions, and teach through design. Rockport Publishers. Matthews, A. (2004). Cognition, emotion, and psychopathology: theoretical, empirical, and clinical directions. Jenny Yiend (ed.). Cambridge University Press. Swinson, R. (2001). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Guilford Press. Read More