Background and objectives

Current studies on emotional dysregulation in BPD suggest that it might be manifested by altered appraisal and biased attentional mechanisms, rather than by hyperreactivity. The aim of this study was to acquire more evidence on this topic by testing the hypothesis that BPD patients are characterized by a negative evaluation bias and reduced visual exploration in response to socio-emotional content. Moreover, the association between the previous conceptualizations and typical dysfunctional processes in BPD were evaluated.

Methods

Fifty-four socio-emotional pictures were administered to 20 female BPD patients and 20 healthy controls (HCs) divided into three blocks characterized by different stimulus durations (500 ms, 3s, 18s). Self-reported and eye-tracking data were collected during the experiment.

Results

BPD patients showed lower valence ratings and reduced visual exploration of socio-emotional pictures compared to HCs. Visual exploration in BPD was affected by exposure time with reduced exploration in response to prolonged stimuli presentation. Dysfunctional features and pre-task negative affectivity level in BPD were correlated with self-reported evaluations and eye-tracking data.

Limitations

Possible effects of gender on emotional responsivity could not be addressed given the female composition of our sample. Moreover, the role of psychiatric symptoms and medications should be addressed in future research.

Conclusions

This study presented evidence on dysfunctional mechanisms sustaining emotional dysregulation in BPD. This construct seemed supported by a well-established negative bias towards emotional stimuli together with a reduced processing of social information as manifestations of emotional hypersensitivity.

中文翻译：

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边缘型人格障碍中社会情感背景的负面偏见和视觉信息处理减少：支持超敏反应假设。

背景和目标

目前关于 BPD 情绪失调的研究表明，它可能表现为改变的评价和有偏见的注意机制，而不是过度反应。本研究的目的是通过检验 BPD 患者的特征是负面评价偏见和减少对社会情感内容的视觉探索的假设，获得关于该主题的更多证据。此外，还评估了先前的概念与 BPD 中典型的功能障碍过程之间的关联。

方法

向 20 名女性 BPD 患者和 20 名健康对照 (HC) 提供了 54 张社会情感图片，分为三个块，以不同的刺激持续时间（500 毫秒、3 秒、18 秒）为特征。在实验过程中收集了自我报告和眼动追踪数据。

结果

与 HC 相比，BPD 患者表现出较低的效价等级和对社会情感图片的视觉探索减少。BPD 中的视觉探索受到暴露时间的影响，对长时间刺激呈现的反应减少了探索。BPD 的功能障碍特征和任务前负面情感水平与自我报告的评估和眼动追踪数据相关。

限制

鉴于我们样本的女性构成，无法解决性别对情绪反应的可能影响。此外，精神症状和药物的作用应该在未来的研究中得到解决。

结论

这项研究提供了关于维持 BPD 情绪失调的功能失调机制的证据。这种结构似乎得到了对情绪刺激的公认的负面偏见以及作为情绪超敏反应表现的社会信息处理减少的支持。