Investigating Principal Working Memory Features in Generalized, Panic, and Social Anxiety Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Anxiety spectrum disorders are characterized by excessive and uncontrollable worrying about potential negative events in the short- and long-term future. Various reports linked anxiety spectrum disorders with working memory (WM) deficits despite conflicting results stemming from different study approaches. It remains unclear, however, how different anxiety spectrum disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), and panic disorder (PD), differ in WM function. In this study, we utilized verbal, numerical, and sequential evaluations of WM to cover most possible facets of the WM data space. We used principal component analysis to extract the uncorrelated/whitened components of WM based on these measures. We evaluated medication-free patients with GAD, SAD, and PD patients as well as matched healthy individuals using a battery that measures WM duration and load. We found that patients with GAD and SAD, but not PD, exhibited poor performance only in the WM principal component that represents maintenance. There were no other significant differences between the four groups. Further, different WM components significantly predicted the severity of anxiety symptoms in the groups. We explored the clinical utility of WM components for differentiating patients with anxiety spectrum disorders from healthy individuals. By only using the WM components that represent maintenance and encoding, we managed to differentiate patients from controls in 84% of cases. For the first time, we present multiple novel approaches to examine cognitive function and design cognitive screening, and potentially diagnostics, for psychiatric disorders.

Do Different Types of Intelligence and Its Implicit Theories Vary Based on Gender and Grade Level?

“…In general, the data shows a highly significant correlation among all variables in this article. As expected, these results support the findings revealed in the previous literature, which indicate that there is a positive, direct association between students' implicit theory, their academic performance, and different types of intelligence (Rammstedt and Rammsayer, 2000;Blackwell et al, 2007;Chen and Wong, 2015;Alesi et al, 2016;Abushalbaq et al, 2021). Therefore, it is not just general intelligence and performance that is positively associated with incremental views of intelligence, but also other types mentioned this study.…”

Exploring the effectiveness of a novel memory training program for students with learning disabilities in the United Arab Emirates: investigating the role of gender differences

“…For example, the study by Klein and Schwartz (1979) also found no significant gender differences in memory performance after training in sequential auditory memory. Similarly, recent studies have shown no gender differences in working memory performance (Hirsch et al, 2019) or in the effects of working memory training on cognitive performance (Abo Hamza and Helal, 2021;Abushalbaq et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2021).…”

“…This notion has a substantial effect on both the instructor and the learner (Trinidad, 2020). Modern cognitive theory emphasizes the interrelation of attention, perception, working memory, and longterm memory in education (Chang et al, 2019;Cicekci and Sadik, 2019;Cortés Pascual et al, 2019;Lodge and Harrison, 2019;Abo Hamza and Helal, 2021;Abushalbaq et al, 2021;Berkowitz et al, 2022). Attention serves as the primary cognitive filter for external inputs, impacting perception and learning (Lodge and Harrison, 2019).…”

“…The majority of ordinary students in the early stages of life can memorize songs and chants, and count automatically before they enroll in formal education, but children with learning disabilities fail to do so, despite their training in kindergarten (Geary et al, 2012;Abushalbaq et al, 2021). As for the stages of formal education, the average student resorts to devising plans that help them acquire information, including memorizing new words or numbers by linking them to personal information they have previously acquired, while students with learning disabilities are often unable to acquire much information because of their poor memory.…”

“…In a review by Alloway (2020) and Rao et al (2023), working memory training was found to be effective in improving working memory and academic achievement in students with learning disabilities. For example, some studies found that working memory training improved working memory performance and reading comprehension in children with dyslexia (Dahlin, 2011;Luo et al, 2013;Maehler et al, 2019;Abo Hamza and Helal, 2021;Abushalbaq et al, 2021;Ren, 2021;Rao et al, 2023).…”