Gabriella Imbriano

All Publications

• Subjective Cognitive Difficulties May Communicate More Than Forgetfulness. International psychogeriatrics Imbriano, G., Beaudreau, S. A. 2023: 1-8

  View details for DOI 10.1017/S1041610223000285

  View details for PubMedID 36960676

• Association of attention and memory biases for negative stimuli with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Journal of anxiety disorders Imbriano, G., Waszczuk, M., Rajaram, S., Ruggero, C., Miao, J., Clouston, S., Luft, B., Kotov, R., Mohanty, A. 2022; 85: 102509

  Abstract

  Cognitive models have highlighted the role of attentional and memory biases towards negatively-valenced emotional stimuli in the maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, previous research has focused mainly on attentional biases towards distracting (task-irrelevant) negative stimuli. Furthermore, attentional and memory biases have been examined in isolation and the links between them remain underexplored. We manipulated attention during encoding of trauma-unrelated negative and neutral words and examined the differential relationship of their encoding and recall with PTSD symptoms. Responders to the World Trade Center disaster (N = 392) performed tasks in which they read negative and neutral words and reported the color of another set of such words. Subsequently, participants used word stems to aid retrieval of words shown earlier. PTSD symptoms were associated with slower response times for negative versus neutral words in the word-reading task (r = 0.170) but not color-naming task. Furthermore, greater PTSD symptom severity was associated with more accurate recall of negative versus neutral words, irrespective of whether words were encoded during word-reading or color-naming tasks (F = 4.11, p = 0.044, ηp2 = 0.018). Our results show that PTSD symptoms in a trauma-exposed population are related to encoding of trauma-unrelated negative versus neutral stimuli only when attention was voluntarily directed towards the emotional aspects of the stimuli and to subsequent recall of negative stimuli, irrespective of attention during encoding.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102509

  View details for PubMedID 34891061

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC8996384

• Online Survey of the Impact of COVID-19 Risk and Cost Estimates on Worry and Health Behavior Compliance in Young Adults. Frontiers in public health Imbriano, G., Larsen, E. M., Mackin, D. M., An, A. K., Luhmann, C. C., Mohanty, A., Jin, J. 2021; 9: 612725

  Abstract

  The novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is associated with elevated rates of anxiety and relatively lower compliance with public health guidelines in younger adults. To develop strategies for reducing anxiety and increasing adherence with health guidelines, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to anxiety and health compliance in the context of COVID-19. Earlier research has shown that greater perceived risk of negative events and their costs are associated with increased anxiety and compliance with health behaviors, but it is unclear what role they play in a novel pandemic surrounded by uncertainty. In the present study we measured (1) perceived risk as the self-reported probability of being infected and experiencing serious symptoms due to COVID-19 and (2) perceived cost as financial, real-world, physical, social, and emotional consequences of being infected with COVID-19. Worry was assessed using the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PWSQ) and health compliance was measured as endorsement of the World Health Organization (WHO) health directives for COVID-19. Our results showed that greater perceived risk and costs of contracting the COVID-19 virus were associated with greater worry and while only costs were associated with greater compliance with health behaviors. Neither self-reported worry nor its interaction with cost estimates was associated with increased engagement in health behaviors. Our results provide important insight into decision making mechanisms involved in both increased anxiety and health compliance in COVID-19 and have implications for developing psychoeducational and psychotherapeutic strategies to target both domains.

  View details for DOI 10.3389/fpubh.2021.612725

  View details for PubMedID 33855007

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC8039118

• The role of imagery in threat-related perceptual decision making. Emotion (Washington, D.C.) Imbriano, G., Sussman, T. J., Jin, J., Mohanty, A. 2020; 20 (8): 1495-1501

  Abstract

  Visual perception is heavily influenced by "top-down" factors, including goals, expectations, and prior knowledge about the environmental context. Recent research has demonstrated the beneficial role threat-related cues play in perceptual decision making; however, the psychological processes contributing to this differential effect remain unclear. Since visual imagery helps to create perceptual representations or "templates" based on prior knowledge (e.g., cues), the present study examines the role vividness of visual imagery plays in enhanced perceptual decision making following threatening cues. In a perceptual decision-making task, participants used threat-related and neutral cues to detect perceptually degraded fearful and neutral faces presented at predetermined perceptual thresholds. Participants' vividness of imagery was measured by the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire-2 (VVIQ-2). Our results replicated prior work demonstrating that threat cues improve accuracy, perceptual sensitivity, and speed of perceptual decision making compared to neutral cues. Furthermore, better performance following threat and neutral cues was associated with higher VVIQ-2 scores. Importantly, more precise and rapid perceptual decision making following threatening cues was associated with greater VVIQ-2 scores, even after controlling for performance related to neutral cues. This association may be because greater imagery ability allows one to conjure more vivid threat-related templates, which facilitate subsequent perception. While the detection of threatening stimuli is well studied in the literature, our findings elucidate how threatening cues occurring prior to the stimulus aid in subsequent perception. Overall, these findings highlight the necessity of considering top-down threat-related factors in visual perceptual decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

  View details for DOI 10.1037/emo0000610

  View details for PubMedID 31192666

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC6908763

• Endogenous in-session cortisol during exposure therapy predicts symptom improvement: Preliminary results from a scopolamine-augmentation trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology Kuhlman, K. R., Treanor, M., Imbriano, G., Craske, M. G. 2020; 116: 104657

  Abstract

  The purpose of this study was to explore whether individual differences in glucocorticoid concentrations were associated with symptom improvement following exposure therapy for patients with social anxiety disorder. To do this, 60 participants with social anxiety disorder completed a randomized-controlled trial of exposure therapy, where participants were randomized to receive scopolamine-augmentation or placebo during their 7 exposure sessions. Scopolamine is an antimuscarinic which blocks the effects of acetylcholine and reduces autonomic arousal. During sessions 1, 4, 7, and during the post-treatment extinction assessment, participants provided up to 16 saliva samples (4 in each session). Pre-treatment, post-treatment, and at 1-month follow-up, participants completed the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale to monitor change in fear and avoidance symptoms. Elevated endogenous in-session cortisol during exposure sessions was associated with less symptom improvement from pre- to post-treatment and at 1-month follow-up. The association between elevated endogenous in-session cortisol and attenuated symptom change was not moderated by scopolamine treatment condition. Individuals with social anxiety disorder who have elevated neuroendocrine signaling may under-benefit from exposure therapy. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to examine whether endogenous in-session cortisol concentrations predict symptom changes following exposure therapy for the treatment of social anxiety disorder. More investigation of non-invasive and reliable biological markers that explain variability in responses to effective treatments are needed.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2020.104657

  View details for PubMedID 32244170

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC7293922

• Knowledge of Threat Biases Perceptual Decision Making in Anxiety: Evidence From Signal Detection Theory and Drift Diffusion Modeling. Biological psychiatry global open science Ozturk, S., Zhang, X., Glasgow, S., Karnani, R. R., Imbriano, G., Luhmann, C., Jin, J., Mohanty, A. 2024; 4 (1): 145-154

  Abstract

  Threat biases are considered key factors in the development and maintenance of anxiety. However, these biases are poorly operationalized and remain unquantified. Furthermore, it is unclear whether and how prior knowledge of threat and its uncertainty induce these biases and how they manifest in anxiety.Participants (n = 55) used prestimulus cues to decide whether the subsequently presented stimuli were threatening or neutral. The cues either provided no information about the probability (high uncertainty) or indicated high probability (low uncertainty) of encountering threatening or neutral targets. We used signal detection theory and hierarchical drift diffusion modeling to quantify bias.High-uncertainty threat cues improved discrimination of subsequent threatening and neutral stimuli more than neutral cues. However, anxiety was associated with worse discrimination of threatening versus neutral stimuli following high-uncertainty threat cues. Using hierarchical drift diffusion modeling, we found that threat cues biased decision making not only by shifting the starting point of evidence accumulation toward the threat decision but also by increasing the efficiency with which sensory evidence was accumulated for both threat-related and neutral decisions. However, higher anxiety was associated with a greater shift of starting point toward the threat decision but not with the efficiency of evidence accumulation.Using computational modeling, these results highlight the biases by which knowledge regarding uncertain threat improves perceptual decision making but impairs it in case of anxiety.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.bpsgos.2023.07.005

  View details for PubMedID 38298800

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10829620

• Perceptual Thresholds for Threat Are Lowered in Anxiety: Evidence From Perceptual Psychophysics CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Glasgow, S., Imbriano, G., Ozturk, S., Jin, J., Mohanty, A. 2023

  View details for DOI 10.1177/21677026231211211

  View details for Web of Science ID 001125900600001

• Threat and uncertainty in the face of perceptual decision-making in anxiety. Journal of psychopathology and clinical science Glasgow, S., Imbriano, G., Jin, J., Zhang, X., Mohanty, A. 2022; 131 (3): 265-277

  Abstract

  Anxiety is defined as an anticipatory response to uncertain, future threats. It is unknown how anticipatory information regarding uncertainty about upcoming threatening and neutral stimuli impacts attention and perception in anxiety. Individuals with and without anxiety disorders performed two perceptual decision-making tasks in which they used threat or neutral prestimulus cues to discriminate between subsequent threatening and neutral faces. In one task, cues provided no probability information (high uncertainty). In the other, cues indicated a high probability of encountering threatening or neutral faces (low uncertainty). Under high uncertainty only, anxious apprehension was associated with worse discrimination between threatening versus neutral faces after threat cues. Additionally, anxious arousal was associated with worse discrimination after neutral cues in individuals with anxiety disorders. These findings will advance the field by spurring the development of more comprehensive and ecologically valid models in which anticipatory top-down factors influence threat perception in anxiety. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

  View details for DOI 10.1037/abn0000729

  View details for PubMedID 35357845