Anxiety and cognitive inhibition.

Wood, Jacqueline N.; Mathews, Andrew; Dalgleish, Tim

doi:10.1037/1528-3542.1.2.166

Cited by 64 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…One explanation for this is that individuals, regardless of anxious state, found it more difficult to disengage from the salient fearful faces [Derryberry and Reed, 2002;Fox et al, 2002]. Cognitive control may have been recruited to ignore fearful faces and thus diverted resources away from attention performance on the subsequent task [Wood et al, 2001]. This is consistent with resource allocation models which hypothesize that facilitation of emotional processing can divert attentional resources to the detriment of other cognitive processes [Compton, 2003;Easterbrook, 1959;Meinhardt and Pekrun, 2003].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…First, anxious individuals, although often performing a primary attention task as well as low anxious individuals, show attention deficits when there is a secondary or dual task-relevant demand [Wood et al, 2001]. This suggests that depletion of general cognitive resources has detrimental effects on attention, but does not speak to whether threat-related attention interference effects are due to increased processing of the affective stimuli Easterbrook, 1959;Ellis and Ashbrook, 1989;Hanoch and Vitouch, 2004;Kliegel et al, 2003;Mogg et al, 2000;Rokke et al, 2002;Schupp et al, 2003;Vuilleumier and Schwartz, 2001].…”

Section: Threat-related Attentional Biases and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These threat-related biases might be linked to evolutionarily adaptive rapid detection and avoidance of potential danger [Mathews, 1990]. Another possibility is that anxious states are associated with reductions in inhibitory control, in particular the inhibition of threat-related and emotionally salient information that is taskirrelevant [Fox et al, 2001;Wood et al, 2001]. It is unclear whether state anxiety within a typical range is linked to reduced inhibition of threat-related distracters (in this study, fearful faces), and whether this has an impact on subsequent alerting, orienting, and executive attention performance.…”

Section: Threat-related Attentional Biases and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A task that assesses multiple aspects of attention simultaneously has the potential to strengthen the inference that emotions have distinct effects on each attention system. For example, affective factors that have an impact on cognitive load, such as emotional distracters and emotional states outside a typical range, might have an enhanced negative impact on aspects of attention that require more conscious control, such as executive attention [Bush et al, 2000;Compton et al, 2003;Wood et al, 2001]. In one study, for instance, anxiety was associated with reduced effortful inhibition of threatrelated stimuli only when mental load was increased or when anxiety was beyond an optimal level [Wood et al, 2001].…”

Section: Threat-related Attentional Biases and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Threat-related attentional biases: an analysis of three attention systems

2008

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It is unclear how threat-related attentional biases affect multiple attention systems. This study used a new modification of a reaction time paradigm to examine whether inter-trial task-irrelevant fearful faces influenced the efficiency of alerting, orienting, and executive attention, and whether effects varied with level of state anxiety. Participants, 63 non-disordered adults (17 males and 46 females), reported on their subjective state anxiety and completed a modified version of the Attention Network Test in which fearful or neutral faces or control stimuli were presented briefly (50 ms) between trials of the task, but provided no task-relevant information. Across all participants, state anxiety was positively correlated with alerting, whereas fearful versus neutral faces were linked to decreased alerting efficiency. Contrasting high and low anxiety groups showed that fearful versus neutral faces reduced executive attention in the low state anxiety group only, suggesting decreased distraction by irrelevant stimuli in the high state anxiety group. Results document threat-related attentional biases that varied with attention system but failed to find enhanced bias effects among those with higher state anxiety in a typical range. This modification of the Attention Network Test, which added presentation of emotional distracters, provides a potentially useful new method for assessing the impact of task-irrelevant emotional stimuli on three aspects of attention performance.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Section: Threat-related Attentional Biases and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Threat-related Attentional Biases and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Threat-related Attentional Biases and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Threat-related attentional biases: an analysis of three attention systems

2008

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“…Threat-sensitivity is more likely to interfere with attention when it exceeds an optimal level: for example, elevated anxiety has been shown to increase the negative impact of threat-related emotional stimuli on executive attention (Jazbec et al, 2005;Mathews and Mackintosh, 1998;Wood et al, 2001) such as conflict interference tasks (Fenske and Eastwood, 2003;Williams et al, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurophysiological mechanisms in the emotional modulation of attention: The interplay between threat sensitivity and attentional control

Dennis¹,

Chen²

2007

Biological Psychology

128

103

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Processing task-irrelevant emotional information may compromise attention performance, particularly among those showing elevated threat sensitivity. If threat-sensitive individuals are able to recruit attentional control to inhibit emotional processing, however, they may show few decrements in attention performance. To examine this hypothesis, attention performance was measured in three domains-alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Task-irrelevant fearful, sad, and happy faces were presented for 50 ms before each trial of the attention task to create a mildly competitive emotional context. Electroencephalographic recordings were made from 64 scalp electrodes to generate event-related potentials (ERPs) to the faces. Participants reporting high threat sensitivity showed enhanced ERPs thought to reflect emotional processing (P200) and attentional control (P100 and N200). Enhanced N200 following fearful faces was linked to sustained and even slightly improved executive attention performance (reduced conflict interference) among high threatsensitive individuals, but with decrements in executive attention among low threat-sensitive individuals. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive processing efficiency and the balance between threat sensitivity and attentional control in relation to executive attention performance. Results may have implications for understanding automatic and voluntary attentional biases related to anxiety. KeywordsCognitive control; Event-related brain potentials; Behavioral inhibition system; Emotion-attention interactions Preferential processing of negative emotional information may compromise attention performance (Cacioppo and Berntson, 1994;Hare et al., 2005;Simpson et al., 2000). This relatively automatic 'negativity bias' is adaptive because it facilitates rapid processing of threat, but may also deplete the resources available for more voluntary control of attention performance (Bishop et al., 2004;Desimone and Duncan, 1995;Kieras et al., 2000;Miller and Cohen, 2001).Individuals who show behavioral inhibition system (BIS) sensitivity and anxious mood are thought to show enhanced negativity biases, particularly towards threat and fear-related stimuli (Bishop et al., 2004;Carver and Scheier, 1998;Gray and McNaughton, 2000;Higgins et al., 1997;Leen-Feldner et al., 2004;Mathews and Mackintosh, 1998). Threat-sensitivity is more likely to interfere with attention when it exceeds an optimal level: for example, elevated anxiety has been shown to increase the negative impact of threat-related emotional stimuli on executive attention (Jazbec et al., 2005;Mathews and Mackintosh, 1998;Wood et al., 2001) such as conflict interference tasks (Fenske and Eastwood, 2003;Williams et al., 1996).BIS-sensitive individuals, however, vary in the degree to which they recruit cognitive control resources to inhibit attention towards emotional information (Gray and Burgess, 2004) and in the degree to which this attentional control supports attention performance (Derryberry and Reed, 2002). For ex...

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A Case Series Investigating Distinct Neuropsychological Profiles in Children and Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa

Rose

Frampton

Lask

2011

Euro Eating Disorders Rev

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A number of specific deficits in neuropsychological functioning in anorexia nervosa (AN) have been identified. However, it is not known whether these specific deficits cluster together to form one or more clear neuropsychological profiles. We present a case series of nine participants who were recruited as part of a wider, ongoing investigation of the neuropsychological profile of eating disorders (the Ravello Profile). Results show that there was a wide range of different neuropsychological profiles at initial assessment. This suggests a spectrum of neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses that would otherwise be masked in a cohort analysis. It is anticipated that factor and cluster analytic studies will establish one or more common profiles of neuropsychological deficits in AN.

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Anxiety and cognitive inhibition.

Cited by 64 publications

References 27 publications

Threat-related attentional biases: an analysis of three attention systems

Threat-related attentional biases: an analysis of three attention systems

Neurophysiological mechanisms in the emotional modulation of attention: The interplay between threat sensitivity and attentional control

A Case Series Investigating Distinct Neuropsychological Profiles in Children and Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa

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