Low Trait Anxious Participants Research Articles

No trait anxiety linked differences in affective and non-affective task-switching

Elevated levels of trait anxiety are argued to interfere with the ability to shift attention between different task sets, yet empirical support for this hypothesis is scarce. Using a task-switching paradigm in two separate studies, we compared high and low trait anxious participants' ability to switch from non-affective, positive, and negative tasks to different non-affective tasks. In Study 1 (N = 59 high and low trait anxious undergraduate students), we found that non-affective-to-non-affective switch costs were smaller than both positive-to-non-affective and negative-to-non-affective switch costs, and positive-to-non-affective switch costs were smaller than negative-to-non-affective switch costs. In Study 2 (N = 97 high and low trait anxious community members), we found that non-affective-to-non-affective switch costs and positive-to-non-affective switch costs were both smaller than negative-to-non-affective switch costs, but positive-to-non-affective and non-affective-to-non-affective switch costs did not differ. Crucially, none of the switch costs in either of the studies or in an analysis of the combined data differed between high and low trait anxious groups. While we cannot exclude the possibility that anxiety linked differences in task-switching do exist when switching from more demanding to less demanding tasks, our studies found no evidence for the general idea that elevated trait anxiety interferes with attentional shifting.

Neural mechanisms of eye gaze processing as a function of emotional expression and working memory load

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of working memory load on the gaze cueing effect in high and low trait-anxious participants, using electroencephalography. Fearful and neutral faces predicted the location of a target, which was a digit that participants were asked to recall from a series encoded in each trial, in a modified version of the attentional cueing task. Working memory load impacted cueing irrespective of emotion and anxiety in analysis of reaction times. Lateralized EEG components then showed that effects of emotion were only apparent in high anxious individuals, with an initial hypervigilance to target locations cued by fearful faces, followed by a difficulty to disengage from these locations when targets appeared at uncued sites (P1). Enhanced amplitude following fearful faces was observed, when discriminative processes leading to response selection are implemented (N1). Conversely, all the effects of working memory load were independent of emotion in the low anxious group, where the shifting of attention directed by the gaze was only visible when enough resources were available in the working memory span. Working memory loads impacted the processing of gaze differently (P1) in low anxious participants, suggesting that top-down influence may play a role in this case.

Trait Anxiety and Biased Prospective Memory for Targets Associated with Negative Future Events

Cognitive models propose that elevated trait anxiety is associated with selective memory for negative information, although often no such effects are observed on tests of retrospective memory. One possibility is that no anxiety-linked biases in memory processes exists, however an alternative hypothesis is that trait anxiety may be associated with a bias in prospective memory, the process of remembering to carry out activities in the future. In two studies, high and low trait-anxious participants completed a prospective memory paradigm consisting of a lexical-decision task with embedded prospective memory targets. These targets signalled either negative (aversive noise burst) or benign (small monetary gain) future events. In both studies, results showed no significant effect of trait anxiety on prospective memory performance, and no interaction with target type. Thus, these results are in line with the research on anxiety-linked biases in retrospective memory, showing no evidence for a bias in prospective memory.

Inhibitory attentional control in anxiety: Manipulating cognitive load in an antisaccade task.

Theorists have proposed that heightened anxiety vulnerability is characterised by reduced attentional control performance and have made the prediction in turn that elevating cognitive load will adversely impact attentional control performance for high anxious individuals to a greater degree than low anxious individuals. Critically however, existing attempts to test this prediction have been limited in their methodology and have presented inconsistent findings. Using a methodology capable of overcoming the limitations of previous research, the present study sought to investigate the effect of manipulating cognitive load on inhibitory attentional control performance of high anxious and low anxious individuals. High and low trait anxious participants completed an antisaccade task, requiring the execution of prosaccades towards, or antisaccades away from, emotionally toned stimuli while eye movements were recorded. Participants completed the antisaccade task under conditions that concurrently imposed a lesser cognitive load, or greater cognitive load. Analysis of participants’ saccade latencies revealed high trait anxious participants demonstrated generally poorer inhibitory attentional control performance as compared to low trait anxious participants. Furthermore, conditions imposing greater cognitive load, as compared to lesser cognitive load, resulted in enhanced inhibitory attentional control performance across participants generally. Crucially however, analyses did not reveal an effect of cognitive load condition on anxiety-linked differences in inhibitory attentional control performance, indicating that elevating cognitive load did not adversely impact attentional control performance for high anxious individuals to a greater degree than low anxious individuals. Hence, the present findings are inconsistent with predictions made by some theorists and are in contrast to the findings of earlier investigations. These findings further highlight the need for research into the relationship between anxiety, attentional control, and cognitive load.

Trait anxiety and the alignment of attentional bias with controllability of danger.

Attentional bias to threat cues is most adaptive when the dangers they signal can readily be controlled by timely action. This study examined whether heightened trait anxiety is associated with impaired alignment between attentional bias to threat and variation in the controllability of danger, and whether this is moderated by executive functioning. Participants completed a task in which threat cues signalled money loss and an aversive noise burst (the danger). In 'high control' blocks, attending to the threat cue offered a high chance of avoiding this danger. In 'low control' blocks, attending to the threat cue offered little control over the danger. The task yielded measures of attentional monitoring for threat, and attentional orienting to threat. Results indicated all participants showed greater attentional orienting to threat cues in high control relative to low control blocks (indicative of proper alignment), however, high trait-anxious participants showed no difference in attentional monitoring for threat between block types, whereas low trait-anxious participants did. This effect was moderated by N-Back scores. These results suggest heightened trait anxiety may be associated with impaired alignment of attentional monitoring for threat cues, and that such alignment deficit may be attenuated by high executive functioning.

When a Bad Bias Can Be Good: Anxiety-Linked Attentional Bias to Threat in Contexts Where Dangers Can Be Avoided

Anxiety vulnerability is associated with an attentional bias to threat. When threat cues signal dangers that can be mitigated through behavioural action, vigilance for these threat cues can have an adaptive function. It is unknown, however, whether the anxiety-linked attentional bias is maintained or eliminated in contexts where threat cues signal dangers that can be mitigated. The current study used a probe task to assess anxiety-linked attentional bias to threat cues signalling a danger (noise burst) that in one condition could and in another condition could not be mitigated. Results showed that high trait anxious participants exhibited a larger attentional bias to threat than low trait anxious participants, and importantly, this anxiety-linked attentional bias did not differ as a function of danger mitigability. These findings suggest that anxiety-linked attentional bias is a rather pervasive processing style that may be insensitive to contextual variation in the adaptiveness of attending to threat.

It's all about Control: Memory Bias in Anxiety is Restricted to Threat Cues that Signal Controllable Danger

Although cognitive models of emotion propose that elevated trait anxiety may be associated with a memory bias for threatening information, evidence for such an anxiety-linked memory bias has been highly inconsistent. Given the crucial role of anxiety in preparing individuals to deal with impending danger, we hypothesized that an anxiety-linked memory bias may be restricted to cues that signal danger which can be controlled. High and low trait anxious participants performed a memory task in which three sets of neutral words were presented. These words acted as either controllable threat cues (signaled a loud noise burst that could be avoided through a secondary task), uncontrollable threat cues (signaled an unavoidable noise burst), or non-threat cues (did not signal a noise bursts). As hypothesized, high anxious participants showed better recognition of controllable threat cues as compared to non-threat cues, whereas no memory bias for uncontrollable threat cues was observed. No memory bias for either type of threat cue was observed in low anxious participants. Future research directions into the relationship between anxiety-linked memory bias and danger controllability are discussed.

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.

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.

Biased saccadic responses to emotional stimuli in anxiety: an antisaccade study.

Research suggests that anxiety is maintained by an attentional bias to threat, and a growing base of evidence suggests that anxiety may additionally be associated with the deficient attentional processing of positive stimuli. The present study sought to examine whether such anxiety-linked attentional biases were associated with either stimulus driven or attentional control mechanisms of attentional selectivity. High and low trait anxious participants completed an emotional variant of an antisaccade task, in which they were required to prosaccade towards, or antisaccade away from a positive, neutral or threat stimulus, while eye movements were recorded. While low anxious participants were found to be slower to saccade in response to positive stimuli, irrespectively of whether a pro- or antisaccade was required, such a bias was absent in high anxious individuals. Analysis of erroneous antisaccades further revealed at trend level, that anxiety was associated with reduced peak velocity in response to threat. The findings suggest that anxiety is associated with the aberrant processing of positive stimuli, and greater compensatory efforts in the inhibition of threat. The findings further highlight the relevance of considering saccade peak velocity in the assessment of anxiety-linked attentional processing.

Impact of fearful expression on danger processing: The influence of the level of trait anxiety

Threat estimation is crucial for the adaptation of behavior to a dangerous situation. In anxiety, a bias to threat has been described as a core feature. Therefore, the sensitivity for threatening information in anxious individuals may have consequences for danger estimation. In this study, we used the affective priming paradigm to test the assumption that fearful expressions would facilitate danger detection in natural scenes in anxious individuals. Twenty-three high trait anxious individuals and 22 low trait anxious individuals participated in the study. They had to detect the potential threat of a target scene (neutral or threatening) following neutral or fearful face primes. High trait anxious participants detected threat more rapidly than low trait anxious participants, consistent with previous reports of emotional hypervigilance in anxiety. Furthermore, this effect was enhanced when the target scene followed a fearful expression: Only in anxious participants were reaction times shorter to detect danger following a fearful prime than a neutral prime. Our results tend to show that in anxiety, the hypervigilance to threat may be of an important value such as increasing the detection of a subsequent potential danger. Implication of attentional processes and attentional control is discussed.

Trait anxiety and perceptual load as determinants of emotion processing in a fear conditioning paradigm.

The impact of trait anxiety and perceptual load on selective attention was examined in a fear conditioning paradigm. A fear-conditioned angry face (CS+), an unconditioned angry face (CS-), or an unconditioned face with a neutral or happy expression were used in distractor interference and attentional probe tasks. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants classified centrally presented letters under two conditions of perceptual load. When perceptual load was high, distractors had no effect on selective attention, even with aversive conditioning. However, when perceptual load was low, strong response interference effects for CS+ face distractors were found for low trait-anxious participants. Across both experiments, this enhanced distractor interference reversed to strong facilitation effects for those reporting high trait anxiety. Thus, high trait-anxious participants were faster, rather than slower, when ignoring CS+ distractors. Using an attentional probe task in Experiment 3, it was found that fear conditioning resulted in strong attentional avoidance in a high trait-anxious group, which contrasted with enhanced vigilance in a low trait-anxious group. These results demonstrate that the impact of fear conditioning on attention is modulated by individual variation in trait anxiety when perceptual load is low. Fear conditioning elicits an avoidance of threat-relevant stimuli in high trait-anxious participants.

Is there a mutual relationship between opposite attentional biases underlying anxiety?

Current models that account for attentional processes in anxiety have proposed that high-trait anxious individuals are characterized by a hypervigilant-avoidant pattern of attentional biases to threat. We adopted a laboratory conditioning procedure to induce concomitant hypervigilance and avoidance to threat, emphasizing a putative relationship between lower-level reactive and upper-level controlled attentional mechanisms as the core account of attentional processes involved in the development and maintenance of anxiety. Eighty high- and low-trait anxious participants underwent Pavlovian conditioning to a human face. Eye tracking was used to monitor attentional changes to the conditioned stimulus (CS+) face and the neutral stimulus (CS-) face, presented at 200, 500, and 800 ms durations. The high-anxious participants developed the expected attentional bias toward the CS+ at 200 ms presentation time and attentional avoidance at 500 and 800 ms durations. Hypervigilance to aversive stimuli at 200 ms and later avoidance to the same stimuli at 500 and 800 ms were associated with higher levels of galvanic skin conductance to the CS+. The low-anxious individuals developed the opposite attentional pattern with an initial tendency to orient attention away from the aversive stimuli in the 200 ms condition and to orient attention toward aversive stimuli in the remaining time. The differential modulation between hypervigilance and avoidance elicited in the two groups by the conditioning procedure suggests that vulnerability to anxiety is characterized by a latent relationship between diverse attentional mechanisms. Within this relationship, hypervigilance and avoidance to threat operate at different stages of information processing suggesting fuzzy boundaries between early reactive and later-strategic processing of threat.

An electrophysiological investigation into the automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious individuals

To examine the extent of automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious participants, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to emotional (fearful, happy) and neutral faces under varying task demands (low load, high load). Results showed that perceptual encoding of emotional faces, as reflected in P1 and early posterior negativity components, was unaffected by the availability of processing resources. In contrast, the postperceptual registration and storage of emotion-related information, as reflected in the late positive potential component at frontal locations, was influenced by the availability of processing resources, and this effect was further modulated by level of trait anxiety. Specifically, frontal ERP augmentations to emotional faces were eliminated in the more demanding task for low trait anxious participants, whereas ERP enhancements to emotional faces were unaffected by task load in high trait anxious participants. This result suggests greater automaticity in processing affective information in high trait anxious participants.

Attentional bias of different trait anxious individuals to the negative words

Objective To investigate the attentional bias for negative words in subjects with different trait anxiety.Methods The subjects with different trait anxiety (high anxiety:n =21,normal:n =20,low anxiety:n =21)participated in a dot-probe task.By compareing the reaction time and attentional bias under the probes replacing the words stimulus in different conditions,the subjects' attentional bias for negative word was examined.Results When the stimulus was negative-neutral words,the subjects all showed attentional bias and there was a significant difference to 0 value[D1=(14.44±26.22)ms,t =2.401;D2=(12.05±19.89)ms,t =2.571;D3=(-13.14±24.07)ms,t =2.379;P <0.05]. When the stimulus is negative-positive words,only the high- and low-anxiety groups show attentional bias and there was a significant difference to 0 value[D4 =(21.07±32.91)ms,t =2.791;D6=(-8.98±18.04)ms,t =2.170;P <0.05].Conclusion High trait anxious participants showed attentional bias to negative words,and low trait anxious participants showed attentional avoidance to negative words. Key words: Anxiety; Dot probe task; Attentional bias; Negative words

The influence of trait anxiety on autonomic response and cognitive performance during an anticipatory anxiety task

The interaction between emotion and cognition is thought to be intimately involved in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. In a set of studies, we investigated whether trait anxiety modulates cognitive performance and autonomic activity during an anticipatory anxiety task. Participants completed a letter-size decision-making task with two alternating 28-32 s background screen color-blocks. One of the colors was associated with the presentation of an aversive noise [unconditioned stimulus (UCS)]. Participants were aware of the background color that would (CTX+) and would not (CTX-) be paired with the UCS but did not know when or how often the UCS would be presented. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, the UCS was presented during the decision-making task in the CTX+ color-blocks using a partial reinforcement schedule. Different noises were presented each time to increase unpredictability and prevent habituation. In Experiment 2, the UCS was never presented during the decision-making task. Results suggested that only the paradigm used in Experiment 1 was successful in eliciting anticipatory anxiety. In Experiment 1, continuously measured skin conductance response (SCR) data suggested that anxiety was significantly greater during CTX+ compared to CTX- trials; no SCR differences were found between high and low trait-anxious participants. Results further indicated that high trait-anxious participants responded significantly faster on the decision-making task during CTX+ compared to CTX- trials, whereas low trait-anxious participants displayed the opposite pattern. Our results reveal an interesting dissociation between the effects of individual differences in trait anxiety on autonomic activity and cognitive performance during an anticipatory anxiety task.

Anxiety and attentional bias for threat: an event-related potential study

We investigated the attentional bias for threat in selected high and low trait-anxious participants using an event-related potential technique. A modified cue-target paradigm was adopted with threatening and nonthreatening pictures as uninformative location cues. In high anxious individuals, reactions were speeded up and the occipitoparietal P1 amplitude was enhanced when targets appeared at the same location as threatening pictures relative to nonthreatening ones, whereas in low anxious individuals, the P1 amplitude tended to be enhanced when the targets appeared at the opposite location to threatening pictures. These results suggest that the attentional bias caused by peripheral threatening stimuli is able to modulate the visual inputs in early processing stages, and this mechanism is markedly influenced by an individual's anxiety level.

A Psychophysical Evaluation of the Relationship Between Trait Anxiety, Pain Perception, and Induced State Anxiety

The present study examined the interactive effects of state and trait anxiety on pain threshold and subjective pain intensity. State anxiety was manipulated in 15 low trait anxious (LTA) individuals and 17 high trait anxious (HTA) individuals, who rated their anxiety level and subjective pain intensity in response to noxious electrical experimental pain stimuli. A difference in pain threshold between HTA and LTA participants was not found; however, higher state anxiety led to an increase in reported pain intensity for all participants. Furthermore, HTA individuals reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and pain intensity than LTA individuals across all pain and anxiety conditions. There was no interaction between state and trait anxiety on pain perception and anxiety ratings. These findings show an additive rather than synergistic effect between state-trait anxiety and subjective pain intensity. Perspective Use of anxiety-reducing techniques for individuals experiencing pain might reduce the perceived severity/intensity of pain. Furthermore, individuals with higher trait anxiety (a greater disposition to experience anxiety) might benefit from these techniques because higher trait anxious individuals tend to exacerbate perceived pain stimulations more than lower trait anxious individuals.

Fear-relevant change detection in spider-fearful and non-fearful participants

Features of threatening stimuli are proposed to be processed fast and automatically, as they call for immediate attention. Phobic patients typically exhibit these attentional biases for stimuli that are relevant for their particular type of fear. In the present study, it was examined whether a change detection paradigm can be used to study attentional bias for fear-related stimuli. Twenty-five spider-fearful and 25 non-fearful participants were confronted with a series of pictures, in which sometimes a spider gradually appeared, sometimes a fear-irrelevant stimulus appeared, and sometimes no change occurred. Participants had to indicate whenever they noticed a change in the picture. Results showed a pattern of fear-relevant change detection. That is, spider changes were more frequently detected than fear-irrelevant changes, and spider-fearful participants detected more spider changes than non-fearful controls. Further, it was found that high-trait anxious participants did not detect more changes than low-trait anxious participants.

The influence of anxiety on electrodermal responses to distractors

Contrary to classical expectation, anxiety has been repeatedly observed to be associated with reduced electrodermal activity. This could be the result of successful coping. In line with this interpretation, high-trait anxious individuals performing moderately arousing tasks were expected to manifest a reduced responding to distractors, since this is an adaptive outcome. High- and low-trait anxious participants had to perform a visual search task in a low-stress context. Unrelated neutral and emotional auditory words served as distractors. As a control, neutral and emotional words were also delivered in a no task condition. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) were greater during the task than during the control phase, but in the high anxious group, this increase in SCRs was smaller following emotional distractors than following neutral ones. Moreover, SCRs to both types of words habituated, but the results suggested that only the low-trait anxious participants presented the classical slowing of SCRs habituation when performing the task. All these data are interpreted as an illustration of a resource-based electrodermal inhibition in the high-trait anxious participants. It sustains the idea that mild to moderate anxiety may increase the mastery of situations.

BRIEF REPORTTime course of attentional bias for threat scenes: Testing the vigilance‐avoidance hypothesis

The study tested the vigilance‐avoidance hypothesis, which proposes that anxiety‐related attentional biases vary over time (i.e., initial vigilance for high threat cues, followed by avoidance). To investigate this, pictorial stimuli, which included scenes of injury, violence, and death, were presented in a visual probe task for two exposure durations: 500 ms and 1500 ms. Results showed that, in comparison with low trait anxious participants, high trait anxious individuals were more vigilant for high threat scenes at the shorter exposure duration (500 ms), and showed no attentional bias at the longer duration. However, the results also indicated significant avoidance of high threat scenes at the longer exposure duration in participants with high levels of blood‐injury fear. These findings are discussed in relation to recent research indicating that anxiety and fear may reflect two distinct aversive motivational systems, which may be characterised by different patterns of cognitive bias.