Anxiety and selective attention to threat in tactical decision-making

Measures of Affect Dimensions

“…Trait and state measures may be employed as outcome variables in evaluation of therapeutic interventions (Spielberger et al, 2004). The state scale is also useful in assessing the impact of experimental manipulations in mood research (Matthews et al, 2011;Rossi & Pourtois, 2012), in correlational studies of emotion and performance (Eysenck & Derakshan, 2011;Matthews et al, 2011), and in assessing affective response in various settings (Zeidner, 1998). In comparison with the more comprehensive mapping of affect dimensions (e.g., Izard et al, 1993), the STPI provides measures of only four affect dimensions.…”

“…Trait anger is associated with elevated blood pressure (Spielberger & Reheiser, 2009). Matthews, Panganiban, and Hudlicka (2011) showed that under neutral mood conditions (N 5 60), STPI trait anxiety correlated .40 with viewing frequency of threat stimuli. Wrenn, Mostofsky, Tofler, Muller, and Mittleman (2013) conducted a prospective cohort study of 1968 survivors of myocardial infarction using the STPI anxiety and anger scales, and found that anxiety was associated with a higher mortality risk over 10 years.…”

Effects of Anxiety on Performance and Workload in an Air Defense Task

“…Some research (e.g., Rutherford, MacLeod, & Campbell, 2004) suggests that this bias occurs as a result of an interaction between state anxiety and trait anxiety, however these studies using tasks such as the emotional Stroop may not capture the complex attentional demands of ABM tasks. A recent study (Matthews, Panganiban, & Hudlicka, 2010) investigated attentional bias using a relatively complex decision-making task requiring active search for information. Consistent with the account of anxiety showing a bias of selective attention to threat-related items, (Eysenck et al, 2007, Bar-Haim et al, 2007 trait anxious individuals revealed increased attention to information about potential threats.…”

“…However, attentional bias was found only with a neutral rather than an anxious mood induction. Matthews et al (2010) also found that state anxiety was related to higher frequency of sampling information, both gains and threats, over the course of the experiment. This finding shows consistency with Processing Efficiency Theory (PET; Eysenck & Calvo, 1992), which links anxiety to increased compensatory effort.…”

Emotion Regulation and Threat Estimation as Mediators of the Relation between Cognitive Functioning and Anxiety in Late Life

“…This finding was particularly unexpected, in light of previous findings which suggest that threat perception is enhanced among people with panic disorder (Windmann & Krueger, 1998). According to some, anxiety may not be associated with wholesale increased sensitivity to threat, however (Matthews, Panganiban, & Hudlika, 2011). Rather, anxiety may be associated with subtle changes in the context of threat, relating to the costs and benefits of the potentially threatening scenario (Panganiban, & Hudlika, 2011).…”