The Memory Bias Toward Negative Context in Episodic Memory in Anxiety Individuals—An Exploratory Study Through ERPs

Abstract

In order to explore the memory bias toward negative context in anxiety individuals, this study explored the cognitive neural mechanisms of at different cognitive process amongst 30 college students (high and low anxiety groups of 15 people each) by using event-related potentials (ERPs) measurement and source memory multiple-task paradigm. At first, it was found that the ERPs of fearful was stronger than the neutral background in the condition of hit <sub>item w/ source </sub>(both the old item and the source were judged correctly), hit item<sub> w/o source</sub> (the old item was judged correctly and the source was not judged correctly) and latter forgotten (both the old item and the source were not judged correctly) generally in the encoding phase. Combined with the behavior data, reaction times of hit item <sub>w/o source</sub> in fearful context were fasten than neutral context. Secondly, as for the memory bias, ERPs were more positive in fear context than neutral context at Fcz/Cz/Cpz in the 700-900ms in the high anxiety group under the condition of hit <sub>item w/o source</sub>. In addition, ERPs were more positive in fear context than neutral context in the 300-500ms under the condition of latter forgotten in the high anxiety group. In conclusion, the memory bias towards negative stimuli in anxiety individuals was found in the encoding phase, indicating that anxiety still had an impact in the early stages of processing, but not in the deep processing.