Placebo induced expectations of mood enhancement generate a positivity effect in emotional processing
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Placebo induced expectations of mood enhancement generate a positivity effect in emotional processing. / Baker, Joshua; Gamer, Matthias; Rauh, Jonas; Brassen, Stefanie.
in: SCI REP-UK, Jahrgang 12, Nr. 1, 5345, 29.03.2022.Publikationen: SCORING: Beitrag in Fachzeitschrift/Zeitung › SCORING: Zeitschriftenaufsatz › Forschung › Begutachtung
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Placebo induced expectations of mood enhancement generate a positivity effect in emotional processing
AU - Baker, Joshua
AU - Gamer, Matthias
AU - Rauh, Jonas
AU - Brassen, Stefanie
N1 - © 2022. The Author(s).
PY - 2022/3/29
Y1 - 2022/3/29
N2 - A perceptual bias towards negative emotions is a consistent finding in mood disorders and a major target of therapeutic interventions. Placebo responses in antidepressant treatment are substantial, but it is unclear whether and how underlying expectancy effects can modulate response biases to emotional inputs. In a first attempt to approach this question, we investigated how placebo induced expectation can shape the perception of specific emotional stimuli in healthy individuals. In a controlled cross-over design, positive treatment expectations were induced by verbal instructions and a hidden training manipulation combined with an alleged oxytocin nasal spray before participants performed an emotion classification task on happy and fearful facial expressions with varying intensity. Analyses of response criterion and discrimination ability as derived from emotion-specific psychometric functions demonstrate that expectation specifically lowered participants' threshold for identifying happy emotions in general, while they became less sensitive to subtle differences in emotional expressions. These indications of a positivity bias were directly correlated with participants' treatment expectations as well as subjective experiences of treatment effects and went along with a significant mood enhancement. Our findings show that expectations can induce a perceptual positivity effect in healthy individuals which is probably modulated by top-down emotion regulation and which may be able to improve mood state. Clinical implications of these promising results now need to be explored in studies of expectation manipulation in patients with mood disorders.
AB - A perceptual bias towards negative emotions is a consistent finding in mood disorders and a major target of therapeutic interventions. Placebo responses in antidepressant treatment are substantial, but it is unclear whether and how underlying expectancy effects can modulate response biases to emotional inputs. In a first attempt to approach this question, we investigated how placebo induced expectation can shape the perception of specific emotional stimuli in healthy individuals. In a controlled cross-over design, positive treatment expectations were induced by verbal instructions and a hidden training manipulation combined with an alleged oxytocin nasal spray before participants performed an emotion classification task on happy and fearful facial expressions with varying intensity. Analyses of response criterion and discrimination ability as derived from emotion-specific psychometric functions demonstrate that expectation specifically lowered participants' threshold for identifying happy emotions in general, while they became less sensitive to subtle differences in emotional expressions. These indications of a positivity bias were directly correlated with participants' treatment expectations as well as subjective experiences of treatment effects and went along with a significant mood enhancement. Our findings show that expectations can induce a perceptual positivity effect in healthy individuals which is probably modulated by top-down emotion regulation and which may be able to improve mood state. Clinical implications of these promising results now need to be explored in studies of expectation manipulation in patients with mood disorders.
KW - Affect
KW - Cross-Over Studies
KW - Emotions
KW - Facial Expression
KW - Happiness
KW - Humans
KW - Motivation
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-022-09342-2
DO - 10.1038/s41598-022-09342-2
M3 - SCORING: Journal article
C2 - 35351936
VL - 12
JO - SCI REP-UK
JF - SCI REP-UK
SN - 2045-2322
IS - 1
M1 - 5345
ER -