Anticipatory Cardiac Deceleration Is Related to Cautious Decision-Making after Threat Image Exposure

Cautious decision-making can be an adaptive tendency in stressful environments and in certain individuals. We hypothesized that cautious decision-making is supported by anticipatory cardiac deceleration (ACD)- a brief cardiac slowing tied to preparation and action readiness. To test this hypothesis, we examined whether individuals with stronger ACD make more economically cautious choices after exposure to threat-depicting images. Participants (N = 97; 65% women, Mean age = 22.4 years) completed a threat priming decision-making task while electrocardiography was collected. To manipulate emotional contexts, every economic lottery choice was preceded by an affective image depicting a neutral, injury threat, or infection threat scene, and choice trials were presented in three separate blocks - one for each image type. Cardiac deceleration was assessed during 10-s countdown periods before each block. Results indicate that individuals with greater ACD before the infection threat block made more cautious choices after exposure to the infection threat images. This association was strongest when the infection block occurred last in the task sequence, i.e., when that image condition was more predictable. No significant relationships emerged for the other image conditions suggesting that anticipatory deceleration might only relate to behavioral caution in certain threat conditions. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that ACD is an autonomic correlate of preparation that is relevant to human performance and fear/anxiety theories.