Investigations of fear conditioning have recently begun to evaluate contextual factors that affect attention-related processes. However, much of the extant literature does not evaluate how contextual fear learning influences neural indicators of attentional processes during goal-directed activity. The current study evaluated how early attention for task-relevant stimuli and conflict monitoring were affected when presented within task-irrelevant safety and threat contexts after fear learning. Participants (N = 72) completed a Flanker task with modified context before and after context-dependent fear learning. Flanker stimuli were presented in the same threat and safety contexts utilized in the fear learning task while EEG was collected. Results indicated increased early attention (N1) to flankers appearing in threat contexts and later increased neural indicators (P2) of attention to flankers appearing in safety contexts. Results of this study indicate that contextual fear learning modulates early attentional processes for task-relevant stimuli that appear in the context of safety and threat. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

恐惧条件反射的调查最近开始评估影响注意力相关过程的背景因素。然而，大部分现有文献并未评估情境恐惧学习如何影响目标导向活动期间注意过程的神经指标。当前的研究评估了在恐惧学习后出现在与任务无关的安全和威胁环境中时，对任务相关刺激和冲突监控的早期注意力如何受到影响。参与者 ( N= 72) 在上下文相关恐惧学习之前和之后完成了带有修改上下文的 Flanker 任务。在收集 EEG 时，侧翼刺激出现在恐惧学习任务中使用的相同威胁和安全环境中。结果表明，早期对出现在威胁环境中的侧翼的注意力 (N1) 增加，后来对出现在安全环境中的侧翼的注意力的神经指标 (P2) 增加。这项研究的结果表明，情境恐惧学习可以调节出现在安全和威胁情境中的与任务相关的刺激的早期注意过程。讨论了理论和临床意义。