Filtering and moderating our surrounding life is how we try to attain a semblance of power or command in a world where there is more uncontrollable stimuli than ever before.
According to the Cognitive Vulnerability Model, it is the perceptions of a stimulus as uncontrollable, unpredictable, dangerous and disgusting which directly determine fear of that stimulus.
Perceptions of a given feared stimulus as uncontrollable, unpredictable, dangerous and disgusting are just as important in the etiology and maintenance of acute phobic fear as they are in sub-clinical fears.
The learned helplessness (LH) paradigm implies subjecting rodents to uncontrollable and inescapable aversive stimuli like electric foot shock, tail shock, or loud acoustic sounds [ 75].
It is possible that the pessimistic students were more prepared to enter a state of protective inhibition due to high level serotonergic neurotransmission when presented with high intensity stimuli in an uncontrollable situation [ 32], while students in the optimistic group may have a weak cortical inhibitory system to protect against overstimulation due to low inhibition function of 5-HT [ 33].
Cells exposed to extreme physicochemical or mechanical stimuli die in an uncontrollable manner, as a result of their immediate structural breakdown.
For example, the basic primary defensive cough pathway (i.e., uncontrollable cough in response to an acute stimulus such as aspiration or direct mechanical probing of the airway mucosa) is likely mediated primarily by extrapulmonary low threshold mechanosensors (cough receptors).
Considering this, it makes sense that although the experiments described in this review aim to isolate and study the effects of a single stimulus, it is likely that many other uncontrollable variables have a significant effect on vascular reactivity.
In their review, Muris et al. (2002) have emphasized that the child's developmental level, stimulus characteristics (e.g., novelty, unpredictability), early experiences with uncontrollable events, and genetically based vulnerability also play a critical role.
