Tuning in to anxiety-related differences in attentional control: Apprehension of threat improves template switching during visual search.

Abstract

Anxiety is believed to disrupt selective attention, supported by evidence that both individual differences in trait anxious personality and induced apprehensive mood can increase distractibility during visual search. While much research has focused on the role of anxiety-related emotion in affecting the ability to "tune out" irrelevant information, there is a scarcity of research on its possible role in affecting the "tuning in" of attention to relevant information. Here, we examined the role of both trait anxiety and induced apprehension on the efficiency to maintain one or more target templates to guide attentional selection during visual search and the switch between search templates. In different blocks, participants searched for target objects defined by a single constant color (one-color search) or by one of two possible colors (two-color search). Trait anxiety was measured by self-report questionnaire, and apprehensive mood was induced in a subset of "threat" blocks, where loud aversive noise was occasionally presented. Relative to "safe" blocks, search reaction times were generally faster in threat blocks. Crucially, induced apprehension also reduced target color switch costs during two-color search. No relationship between trait anxiety and performance was observed. These results show that acute apprehension can affect tuning-in functions of attentional control by paradoxically improving the efficiency of switching target templates during visual search. Influences of trait anxious personality may be mainly confined to tuning-out processes of attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).