All in its proper time: monitoring the emergence of a memory bias for novel, arousing-negative words in individuals with high and low trait anxiety.

Annuschka Salima Eden,Markus Junghöfer,Peter Zwanzger,Katharina Keuper,Christian Dobel,Inga Laeger,Pienie Zwitserlood

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098339

Annuschka Salima Eden, Markus Junghöfer + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098339

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Jun 2, 2014
Citations: 79	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University Hospital Münster, University of Münster

Abstract

The well-established memory bias for arousing-negative stimuli seems to be enhanced in high trait-anxious persons and persons suffering from anxiety disorders. We monitored the emergence and development of such a bias during and after learning, in high and low trait anxious participants. A word-learning paradigm was applied, consisting of spoken pseudowords paired either with arousing-negative or neutral pictures. Learning performance during training evidenced a short-lived advantage for arousing-negative associated words, which was not present at the end of training. Cued recall and valence ratings revealed a memory bias for pseudowords that had been paired with arousing-negative pictures, immediately after learning and two weeks later. This held even for items that were not explicitly remembered. High anxious individuals evidenced a stronger memory bias in the cued-recall test, and their ratings were also more negative overall compared to low anxious persons. Both effects were evident, even when explicit recall was controlled for. Regarding the memory bias in anxiety prone persons, explicit memory seems to play a more crucial role than implicit memory. The study stresses the need for several time points of bias measurement during the course of learning and retrieval, as well as the employment of different measures for learning success.

Highlights

A hallmark finding in emotion research is that emotional items receive preferential processing
It is generally assumed that the differences in processing and learning of emotional stimuli, in combination with environmental and genetic predispositions, constitute the basis for the development of anxiety disorders (e.g. [28]). To understand these disorders and to develop effective psychotherapeutic treatments, it is essential to understand how emotionally arousing and negative stimuli and situations are processed and learned. This is why the current study investigates the emergence of memory bias for stimuli with a recently acquired arousing-negative connotation in high and low trait anxious persons
We monitored the development of a memory bias for arousingnegative pseudowords during and after learning in high and low trait-anxious individuals

Summary

Introduction

A hallmark finding in emotion research is that emotional items receive preferential processing. Evidence for the existence of an explicit memory bias for emotional stimuli in persons with high trait anxiety comes from Eysenck and Byrne [45], Russo and colleagues [25], as well as from a meta-analytic review by Mitte [26], who analyzed data from implicit and explicit tests separately. The valence ratings entailed a spontaneous evaluation of the pseudowords’ valence, used to assess the transfer of valence from the emotionally arousing pictures to the originally neutral pseudowords This rating was considered to tap into implicit memory for the pseudowords’ meaning, especially when explicitly remembered items were removed from the data. If consolidation has a differential impact on the bias development in high and lowanxiety groups, differences between the two groups should increase with time

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