Anxiety and individual differences in event-related potentials during the recognition of sense and nonsense words

Abstract

Event-related potentials (ERPs) to binaurally presented tone pips were elicited while male and female subjects with high and low level of anxiety were engaged in sense and nonsense word recognition tasks. ERPs were recorded from left and right frontal and temporo-parieto-occipital scalp locations. Peak latencies and amplitudes of N2 and P3 components were obtained for each subject during sense and nonsense word recognition tasks. High anxiety subjects exhibited a smaller N2 peak amplitude as compared with the lows. These subjects also showed smaller N2 and P3 peak amplitudes on the left hemisphere with respect to the right in the recognition of sense words and no hemisphere differences in the recognition of nonsense ones. Low subjects, in contrast, did not exhibit a hemisphere difference for sense words, while they, for nonsense words, showed smaller N2 and P3 amplitudes on the left hemisphere as compared with the right. Word recognition time was longer for nonsense words as compared with that obtained for sense ones. P3 amplitude and word recognition time were parallel among male and female subjects and across task conditions. An interpretation of these findings according to information arousal models is given.