The influence of individual differences on neural correlates of emotional and cognitive information processes

Abstract

Inconsistent findings regarding the emotional Stroop effect in healthy subjects may be explained by confounding effects of stimulus valence and arousal, and individual differences in anxiety. Here, we examined reaction time data in a healthy sample using the emotional Stroop task while carefully matching arousal level of emotional words. Independent of valence, emotional words elicited emotional interference, indicating that arousal determines emotional interference. Furthermore, independent of valence, emotional words were better recalled and recognized than neutral words. With regard to individual differences in anxiety we found that state anxiety was associated with emotional interference, that is, subjects with high state anxiety showed greater interference than subjects with low state anxiety. There was no influence of trait anxiety. These findings indicate that the emotional Stroop interference effect is mediated by word arousal and not word valence. Furthermore, subjects’ state anxiety influences emotional interference of highly arousing words by biasing attentional resources.