Anxiety is characterized by cognitive biases, including attentional bias to emotional (especially threatening) stimuli. Accounts differ on the time course of attention to threat, but the literature generally confounds emotional valence and arousal and overlooks gender effects, both addressed in the present study. Nonpatients high in self-reported anxious apprehension, anxious arousal, or neither completed an emotion-word Stroop task during ERP recording. Hypotheses differentiated time course of preferential attention to emotional stimuli. Individuals high in anxious apprehension and anxious arousal showed distinct early ERP evidence of preferential processing of emotionally arousing stimuli along with some evidence for gender differences in processing. Healthy controls showed gender differences at both early and later processing stages. The conjunction of valence, arousal, and gender is critical in the time course of attentional bias.

A network of brain regions has been implicated in top-down attentional control, including left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). The present experiment evaluated predictions of the cascade-of-control model (Banich, 2009), which predicts that during attentionally-demanding tasks, LDLPFC imposes a top-down attentional set which precedes late-stage selection performed by dACC. Furthermore, the cascade-of-control model argues that dACC must increase its activity to compensate when top-down control by LDLPFC is poor. The present study tested these hypotheses using fMRI and dense-array ERP data collected from the same 80 participants in separate sessions. fMRI results guided ERP source modeling to characterize the time course of activity in LDLPFC and dACC. As predicted, dACC activity subsequent to LDLPFC activity distinguished congruent and incongruent conditions on the Stroop task. Furthermore, when LDLPFC activity was low, the level of dACC activity was related to performance outcome. These results demonstrate that dACC responds to attentional demand in a flexible manner that is dependent on the level of LDLPFC activity earlier in a trial. Overall, results were consistent with the temporal course of regional brain function proposed by the cascade-of-control model.

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The present study examined the utility of the anhedonic depression scale from the Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire (MASQ-AD scale) as a way to screen for depressive disorders. Using receiver-operating characteristic analysis, we examined the sensitivity and specificity of the full 22-item MASQ-AD scale, as well as the 8-and 14-item subscales, in relation to both current and lifetime Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) depressive disorder diagnoses in two nonpatient samples. As a means of comparison, the sensitivity and specificity of a measure of a relevant personality dimension, Neuroticism, was also examined. Results from both samples support the clinical utility of the MASQ-AD scale as a means of screening for depressive disorders. Findings were strongest for the MASQ-AD 8-item subscale and when predicting current depression status. Furthermore, the MASQ-AD 8-item subscale outperformed the Neuroticism measure under certain conditions. The overall usefulness of the MASQ-AD scale as a screening device is discussed, as are possible cutoff scores for use in research.Keywords: depressive disorders, anhedonic depression, Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire, receiver-operating characteristic analysis, screeningThere are a variety of strategies that clinical researchers can use to recruit individuals with specific forms of psychopathology. One strategy is to target individuals seeking treatment for the condition of interest. A key limitation of this strategy is that those individuals seeking treatment can be expected to be unrepresentative of individuals who have that condition (du Fort, Newman, & Bland, 1993). An alternative approach is to use specific advertising techniques to target individuals who report having these conditions, although again there is no way to ensure that those who respond are representative. A third approach is to screen, using diagnostic interviews, a very large number of individuals (with the number of individuals to be screened guided by base rates). This strategy can be very inefficient because of the relatively large amount of time that must be devoted to screening each participant.A related recruitment approach involves screening a large number of participants with an instrument that can be administered quickly and easily and then conducting follow-up assessments with a subset of these individuals using more extensive diagnostic procedures. This approach has the advantages of being more efficient than conducting full assessments with a large number of participants and having the ability to identify non-treatmentseeking individuals with psychopathology. Of course, the feasibility of adopting this approach is premised on two conditions: (a) that sufficiently predictive instruments have been identified that can accurately distinguish individuals who are likely to meet diagnostic criteria from individuals who are likely to not meet diagnostic criteria and (b) that information is available for determining an appropriate cutoff value that can be used for ...

Although a substantial body of research has examined the relationship between motivational systems and mood and anxiety disorders, there is disagreement among theorists regarding the nature of these relationships. Discrepancies in the literature may be explained by several factors. Studies of motivational models rarely examine both mood and anxiety disorders simultaneously, making comparisons among them difficult. Furthermore, dimensions of anxiety often are not distinguished, obscuring potential relationships. Finally, although research in this area is beginning to conceptualize individual differences in motivational systems as longstanding temperament phenomena, this notion has not been widely incorporated into motivational models. The present study examined relationships between temperamental differences in approach and avoidance motivational systems and dimensions of anxiety and depression. Results revealed distinct relationships between motivational temperaments and each psychopathology dimension. Present findings implicate individual differences in temperamental motivation as a potential factor in the development and/or maintenance of mood and anxiety disorders.

A network consisting of left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) has been implicated in top-down attentional control. Few studies have systematically investigated how this network is altered in psychopathology, despite evidence that depression and anxiety are associated with attentional control impairments. fMRI and dense-array ERP data were collected in separate sessions from 100 participants during a color-word Stroop task. fMRI results guided ERP source modeling to characterize the time course of activity in LDLPFC (300-440 ms) and dACC (520-680 ms). At low levels of depression, LDLPFC activity was indirectly related to Stroop interference and only via dACC activity. In contrast, at high levels of depression, dACC did not play an intervening role, and increased LDLPFC activity was directly related to decreased Stroop interference. Specific to high levels of anxious apprehension, higher dACC activity was related to more Stroop interference. Results indicate that depression and anxious apprehension modulate temporally and functionally distinct aspects of the frontocingulate network involved in top-down attention control.

Although models of emotion have focused on the relationship between anger and approach motivation associated with aggression, anger is also related to withdrawal motivation. Anger-out and anger-in styles are associated with psychopathology and may disrupt the control of attention within the context of negatively valenced information. The present study used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine whether anger styles uniquely predict attentional bias to negative stimuli during an emotion-word Stroop task. High anger-out predicted larger N200, P300, and N400 to negative words, suggesting that aggressive individuals exert more effort to override attention to negative information. In contrast, high anger-in predicted smaller N400 amplitude to negative words, indicating that negative information may be readily available (primed) for anger suppressors, requiring fewer resources. Individuals with an anger-out style might benefit from being directed away from provocative stimuli that might otherwise consume their attention and foster overt aggression. Findings indicating that anger-out and anger-in were associated with divergent patterns of brain activity provide support for distinguishing approach-and withdrawal-related anger styles. KeywordsAnger; Emotion; Motivation; Cognitive Resources; Event-Related PotentialsResearchers have postulated approach-and withdrawal-related motivational systems that are implemented in several brain regions and that play a crucial role in the experience and expression of emotion. Anger, a feeling evoked when individuals believe that they or others are treated badly or unfairly (Averill, 2001), involves approach and/or withdrawal behavior © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Correspondence should be directed to Jennifer L. Stewart, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, 1503 East University Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85721, Phone: (520) 626-5401, Fax: (757) 257-6344, jlstewar@email.arizona.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptInt J Psychophysiol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 April 1. Published in final edited form as:Int J Psychophysiol. 2010 April ; 76(1): 9-18. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2010.01.008. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript depending on context (e.g., Berkowitz, 1990;Watson, 2009; though see Carver & HarmonJones, 2009). Spielberger (1988Spielberger ( , 1999 developed the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI), which conceptualizes anger expression styles that occur in connection with angry feelings. The STAXI an...

An individual’s self-reported abilities to attend to, understand, and reinterpret emotional situations or events have been associated with anxiety and depression, but it is unclear how these abilities affect the processing of emotional stimuli, especially in individuals with these symptoms. The present study recorded event-related brain potentials while individuals reporting features of anxiety and depression completed an emotion-word Stroop task. Results indicated that anxious apprehension, anxious arousal, and depression were associated with self-reported emotion abilities, consistent with prior literature. Additionally, lower anxious apprehension and greater reported emotional clarity were related to slower processing of negative stimuli indexed by event-related potentials (ERPs). Higher anxious arousal and reported attention to emotion were associated with ERP evidence of early attention to all stimuli regardless of emotional content. Reduced later engagement with stimuli was also associated with anxious arousal and with clarity of emotions. Depression was not differentially associated with any emotion processing stage indexed by ERPs. Research in this area may lead to the development of therapies that focus on minimization of anxiety in order to foster successful emotion regulation.