Attentional Control and Suppressing Negative Thought Intrusions in Pathological Worry

Fox, Elaine; Dutton, Kevin; Yates, Alan; Georgiou, George; Mouchlianitis, Elias

doi:10.1177/2167702615575878

Cited by 46 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Evidence from Stroop (70), antisaccade (71), and flanker tasks (72) demonstrates an inhibitory deficit in anxiety, with individuals showing a stronger deficiency also experiencing more negative intrusive thoughts (72). Consistently, we observed that anxious individuals were worse at attenuating their fears by suppression, a finding that mirrors their impairment in suppressing negative memories (45,(47)(48)(49).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

Benoit

Davies

Anderson

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Imagining future events conveys adaptive benefits, yet recurrent simulations of feared situations may help to maintain anxiety. In two studies, we tested the hypothesis that people can attenuate future fears by suppressing anticipatory simulations of dreaded events. Participants repeatedly imagined upsetting episodes that they feared might happen to them and suppressed imaginings of other such events. Suppressing imagination engaged the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which modulated activation in the hippocampus and in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Consistent with the role of the vmPFC in providing access to details that are typical for an event, stronger inhibition of this region was associated with greater forgetting of such details. Suppression further hindered participants’ ability to later freely envision suppressed episodes. Critically, it also reduced feelings of apprehensiveness about the feared scenario, and individuals who were particularly successful at down-regulating fears were also less trait-anxious. Attenuating apprehensiveness by suppressing simulations of feared events may thus be an effective coping strategy, suggesting that a deficiency in this mechanism could contribute to the development of anxiety.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

Benoit

Davies

Anderson

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…A dynamic shift in the control of emotional distraction may well account for some discrepancies that have appeared in the literature regarding the ability of emotional images to capture attention, where some studies find that irrelevant emotional images that occur outside the focus of attention can disrupt processing (Fox, Dutton, Yates, Georgiou, & Mouchlianitis, 2015;Junhong et al, 2013;Yates, Ashwin, & Fox, 2010), but others show they do not (Lichtenstein-Vidne et al, 2012;Okon-Singer et al, 2007;Vromen et al, 2015). A systematic manipulation of proportion conflict may furthermore shed light on the modulation of other emotional effects such as those revealed with emotional Stroop, visual search, or spatial cueing paradigms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting reactive and proactive control of emotional distraction.

Grimshaw¹,

Kranz²,

Carmel³

et al. 2018

Emotion

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Attending to emotional stimuli is often beneficial, because they provide important social and environmental cues. Sometimes, however, current goals require that we ignore them.To what extent can we control emotional distraction? Here we show that the ability to ignore emotional distractions depends on the type of cognitive control that is engaged.Participants completed a simple perceptual task at fixation while irrelevant images appeared peripherally. In two experiments, we manipulated the proportion of trials in which images appeared, in order to encourage use of either reactive control (rare distractors) or proactive control (frequent distractors). Under reactive control, both negative and positive images were more distracting than neutral images, even though they were irrelevant and appeared in unattended locations. However, under proactive control, distraction by both emotional and neutral images was eliminated. Contrasting Reactive and Proactive Control of Emotional DistractionEmotional stimuli are important. They signal potential threats and rewards and so guide adaptive behaviour. Perceptual and attentional systems prioritize them, as demonstrated through behavioural, electrophysiological and neuroimaging research (for reviews see Carretié, 2014;Okon-Singer, Lichtenstein-Vidne, & Cohen, 2013;Pourtois, Schettino, & Vuilleumier, 2013;Yiend, 2010). But sometimes we need to ignore an emotional stimulus so we can get on with the task at hand. We might need to block out a scowling face to maintain our goal of giving a good talk, or ignore an attractive classmate to concentrate on a lecture. Emotional distractions plague us all, and in disorders such as depression, anxiety, and addiction, they can be overwhelming (Cisler & Koster, 2010;De Raedt & Koster, 2010;Field & Cox, 2008). Non-emotional distractors are known to disrupt performance (Forster & Lavie, 2008a,2008b, but they can also be controlled if we know to expect them (Braver, 2012;Müller, Geyer, Zehetleitner & Krummenacher, 2009) Can we ever control emotional distractions as effectively as those that are more mundane? Cognitive Control of Non-emotional DistractionIn non-emotional contexts, entirely irrelevant stimuli can disrupt performance (Forster & Lavie, 2008a, 2008b. For example, Forster and Lavie (2008a) describe an irrelevant flanker paradigm in which participants complete a letter discrimination task near fixation, while irrelevant images (cartoon characters) appear peripherally. Even when the images are completely task-irrelevant and appear in non-target locations, they can disrupt performance (Forster & Lavie, 2008a as long as the participant's task is perceptually simple (i.e., low load; Forster & Lavie, 2008b). Even under low load, distraction is not obligatory, though; distractors are also less disruptive when they appear more frequently. In 4 Forster and Lavie's (2008a) experiment, images were significantly less distracting when they appeared on 50% compared to 10% of trials. Even more striking distractor frequency effects can be se...

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“…This finding suggests that behavioral variability—instead of average velocity—might be assumed as a biomarker for pathological states, as already documented for other psychopathological and neurological conditions (Castellanos et al, 2005; MacDonald et al, 2006; Gazzellini et al, 2016). The lack of performance improvement in high-worriers and the concomitant increase in the CV possibly signal the presence of intrusive thoughts as suggested by previous studies linking deficits in attentional control to greater difficulty in controlling negative thought intrusions (Fox et al, 2015). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Consistently, Hayes et al (2008) have shown that—compared with thinking about other topics—worry depletes the ability to exert attentional control, particularly in pathological worriers. Moreover, Fox et al (2015) showed that dispositional differences in trait propensity to worry are related to difficulties in ignoring irrelevant material with a significant correlation between the degree of deficit in attentional control and the degree of difficulty in suppressing negative thought intrusions. Ottaviani et al (2013, 2016b) confirmed that a worry induction is associated with a slowing down in reaction times (RTs) during a sustained attention task, further revealing an association between such attentional/cognitive rigidity and autonomic inflexibility, indexed by reduced heart rate variability (HRV).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association between Attention and Heart Rate Fluctuations in Pathological Worriers

Gazzellini

Dettori

Amadori

et al. 2016

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Recent data suggests that several psychopathological conditions are associated with alterations in the variability of behavioral and physiological responses. Pathological worry, defined as the cognitive representation of a potential threat, has been associated with reduced variability of heart beat oscillations (i.e., decreased heart rate variability; HRV) and lapses of attention indexed by reaction times (RTs). Clinical populations with attention deficit show RTs oscillation around 0.05 and 0.01 Hz when performing a sustained attention task. We tested the hypothesis that people who are prone to worry do it in a predictable oscillating pattern revealed through recurrent lapses in attention and concomitant oscillating HRV. Sixty healthy young adults (50% women) were recruited: 30 exceeded the clinical cut-off on the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ; High-Worry, HW); the remaining 30 constituted the Low-Worry (LW) group. After a diagnostic assessment, participants performed two 15-min sustained attention tasks, interspersed by a standardized worry-induction procedure. RTs, HRV and moods were assessed. The analyses of the frequency spectrum showed that the HW group presents a significant higher and constant peak of RTs oscillation around 0.01 Hz (period 100 s) after the induction of worry, in comparison with their baseline and with the LW group that was not responsive to the induction procedure. Physiologically, the induction significantly reduced high-frequency HRV and such reduction was associated with levels of self-reported worry. Results are coherent with the oscillatory nature of the default mode network (DMN) and further confirm an association between cognitive rigidity and autonomic nervous system inflexibility.

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Attentional Control and Suppressing Negative Thought Intrusions in Pathological Worry

Cited by 46 publications

References 45 publications

Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

Contrasting reactive and proactive control of emotional distraction.

Association between Attention and Heart Rate Fluctuations in Pathological Worriers

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