Looking for trouble: A common threat-detection mechanism underlying pain, fear, and anxiety

I put forward a novel cognitive architecture for pain, fear, and anxiety, according to which these three capacities are underpinned by a common threat-detection mechanism. This mechanism takes information about potential threats as input, assesses whether the threat is actual and, if it deems it is, outputs a threat representation. If this is correct, pain, fear, and anxiety turn out to be different manifestations of the same cognitive mechanism. I defend my proposal by discussing a large swath of convergent evidence from different quarters of the sciences of the mind.

Publication Details

Journal
White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York)
Published
2025-11-11
Primary Topic
Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Looking for trouble: A common threat-detection mechanism underlying pain, fear, and anxiety

White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York)
Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
article

Looking for trouble: A common threat-detection mechanism underlying pain, fear, and anxiety

article en

Abstract

I put forward a novel cognitive architecture for pain, fear, and anxiety, according to which these three capacities are underpinned by a common threat-detection mechanism. This mechanism takes information about potential threats as input, assesses whether the threat is actual and, if it deems it is, outputs a threat representation. If this is correct, pain, fear, and anxiety turn out to be different manifestations of the same cognitive mechanism. I defend my proposal by discussing a large swath of convergent evidence from different quarters of the sciences of the mind.

White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York)
Reduced inequalities
Openalex Percentile: Top 33%
Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
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Looking for trouble: A common threat-detection mechanism underlying pain, fear, and anxiety · White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS