Figure 1.

Simple slopes representation of models predicting changes in mental health symptoms and startle potentiation from changes in the affective tone of recent news coverage exposure. Models predicting physical symptoms (A), depressive symptoms (B), anxiety symptoms (C), and startle modulation (D) from affective tone of recent news coverage exposure. Values for affective tone indicate the proportion of affective words that were positive and negative in the recent news coverage (i.e., over the previous 2 weeks) to which participants reported being exposed. Higher values for affective tone indicate increases in the proportion of positive affective words and decreases in the proportion of negative affective words, while lower values for affective tone indicate decreases in the proportion of positive affective words and increases in the proportion of negative affective words. Model slopes are represented by a black line, with ±1 standard error of the slope and intercept for each model shown as a gray shaded area. SD stands for standard deviation.