Acutely induced anxiety increases negative interpretations of events in a closed-circuit television monitoring task

Abstract

In two experiments we measured the effects of 7.5% CO₂ inhalation on the interpretation of video footage recorded on closed circuit television (CCTV). As predicted, inhalation of 7.5% CO₂ was associated with increases in physiological and subjective correlates of anxiety compared with inhalation of medical air (placebo). Importantly, when in the 7.5% CO₂ condition, participants reported the increased presence of suspicious activity compared with placebo (Experiment 1), a finding that was replicated and extended (Experiment 2) with no concomitant increase in the reporting of the presence of positive activity. These findings support previous work on interpretative bias in anxiety but are novel in terms of how the anxiety was elicited, the nature of the interpretative bias, and the ecological validity of the task.

Experimentally-induced and real-world acute anxiety have no effect on goal-directed behaviour

“…In a betweensubjects design, one group was assigned to inhale hypercapnic gas (7.5% CO2) during the performance of a cognitive task, while the other inhaled normal air. Psychological and physiological measures confirmed that anxiety induction was successful and of a magnitude similar to that observed in prior studies (33)(34)(35): participants in the CO2 condition experienced greater self-reported anxiety (p < .001) and had a higher heart rate (p < .001) than those assigned to the Air condition ( Figure 1B and 1D; supplementary materials). We tested if this manipulation would affect subjects' ability to detect action-outcome instrumental contingency using a contingency degradation paradigm (7), one of the earliest operationalisations of goal-directed learning from the animal literature (36).…”

“…However, the findings of Experiment 3, which benefit from the inclusion of previously published clinical effect size comparator (the effect of compulsivity on model-based planning), help put these null findings in meaningful context. It is unlikely that our manipulation was not strong enough to induce a robust anxiogenic effect because previous studies have demonstrated that the 7.5% CO2 manipulation is powerful enough to elicit robust effects on behavioural performance relating to threat sensitivity and hyper-vigilance (33)(34)(35), in addition to the well-documented physiological and psychological effects (24,58). The magnitude of self-report and physiological changes in the present study were on-par with those observed in prior studies (33)(34)(35).…”

“…Results from studies using the 7.5% CO2 challenge closely mirror these findings -with the manipulation increasing alerting and orienting (33), threat processing (e.g. hypervigilance) (35) and negative interpretations of neutral events (34), thus suggesting that 7.5% hypercapnic gas manipulation in the lab can mirror cognitive changes observed in association with anxiety. While the putative role that anxiety plays in more complex forms of decisionmaking is of broad interest (48), there is a dearth of evidence suggesting it has effects that are not explained as knock-on effects of increases in threat-sensitivity and vigilance.…”

Suspiciousness perception in dynamic scenes: a comparison of CCTV operators and novices

“…For example, footage of individuals “loitering” in a car park at night may be judged as suspicious to a greater or lesser extent by different individuals depending on their interpretation of the events depicted. In fact, it is has been previously shown for the same task that mood state can alter these judgements whilst monitoring CCTV (Cooper et al, 2013) reinforcing the subjective nature of these judgements. Therefore, even for the trained CCTV operators, there can be no objectively “correct” rating.…”

The influence of experience upon information-sampling and decision-making behaviour during risk assessment in military personnel

“…When participants are penalised for failing to detect a target, then they are more likely to respond that the target is present, even when it is not (Chun & Wolfe, 1996;Macmillan & Creelman, 2005). In a recent study, Cooper et al (2013) found that CCTV operators were more likely to respond that they had detected dangerous or suspicious behaviour in the video streams that they were monitoring when under conditions of induced anxiety. The experienced participants in our experiment will have had considerable and varying experiences associated with success and failure in risk assessment decisions.…”