It's all about Control: Memory Bias in Anxiety is Restricted to Threat Cues that Signal Controllable Danger

Large, Benita; MacLeod, Colin; Clarke, Patrick; Notebaert, Lies

doi:10.5127/jep.048515

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…It appears that under some very specific conditions an anxiety-liked memory bias may be observed (e.g. Large, MacLeod, Clarke, & Notebaert, 2016;Mitte, 2008). However, our findings corroborate the general trend in the memory bias literature, suggesting there is no relationship between trait anxiety and memory bias (MacLeod & Mathews, 2004;Mitte, 2008), and extends this to memory processes that have valenced future implications.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Trait Anxiety and Biased Prospective Memory for Targets Associated with Negative Future Events

et al. 2018

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Cognitive models propose that elevated trait anxiety is associated with selective memory for negative information, although often no such effects are observed on tests of retrospective memory. One possibility is that no anxiety-linked biases in memory processes exists, however an alternative hypothesis is that trait anxiety may be associated with a bias in prospective memory, the process of remembering to carry out activities in the future. In two studies, high and low trait-anxious participants completed a prospective memory paradigm consisting of a lexical-decision task with embedded prospective memory targets. These targets signalled either negative (aversive noise burst) or benign (small monetary gain) future events. In both studies, results showed no significant effect of trait anxiety on prospective memory performance, and no interaction with target type. Thus, these results are in line with the research on anxiety-linked biases in retrospective memory, showing no evidence for a bias in prospective memory.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Trait Anxiety and Biased Prospective Memory for Targets Associated with Negative Future Events

et al. 2018

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“…Others have proposed that anxiety-linked attentional bias may fluctuate widely from moment-to-moment (Iacoviello et al, 2014; but see Kruijt, Field, & Fox, 2016;Zvielli, Bernstein, & Koster, 2014). Moreover, recent developments have shown that biased attention may vary in response to changing contextual demands (Large, MacLeod, Clarke, & Notebaert, 2016;Notebaert et al, 2017), and in some contexts, attending to threat cues may, in spite of its effect on anxiety, also have beneficial consequences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trait anxiety and the alignment of attentional bias with controllability of danger

Notebaert

Georgiades

Herbert

et al. 2018

Psychological Research

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Attentional bias to threat cues is most adaptive when the dangers they signal can readily be controlled by timely action. This study examined whether heightened trait anxiety is associated with impaired alignment between attentional bias to threat and variation in the controllability of danger, and whether this is moderated by executive functioning. Participants completed a task in which threat cues signalled money loss and an aversive noise burst (the danger). In 'high control' blocks, attending to the threat cue offered a high chance of avoiding this danger. In 'low control' blocks, attending to the threat cue offered little control over the danger. The task yielded measures of attentional monitoring for threat, and attentional orienting to threat. Results indicated all participants showed greater attentional orienting to threat cues in high control relative to low control blocks (indicative of proper alignment), however, high trait-anxious participants showed no difference in attentional monitoring for threat between block types, whereas low trait-anxious participants did. This effect was moderated by N-Back scores. These results suggest heightened trait anxiety may be associated with impaired alignment of attentional monitoring for threat cues, and that such alignment deficit may be attenuated by high executive functioning.

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“…Additonally, studies have demonstrated that anxiety may only enhance the retrieval of episodic threat information when there is a clear causal connection between the predictor and the aversive outcome (Toffalini et al, 2015), or when it can be controlled (Large et al, 2016). Neither these factors were present in the current design.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Affective integration: episodic mechanisms underlying preconditioned threat responses

Vries¹,

Kindt²,

Ast³

2023

Preprint

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Whereas many studies have investigated generalization of learned threat across semantic dimensions, little attention has been given to the possibility that Pavlovian threat responses may spread beyond what is directly learned through episodic associations. Here, we increased the demand on episodic memory in a sensory preconditioning task to assess whether and how episodic memory contributes to threat generalization. Participants encoded forty unique episodes, each consisting of two neutral stimuli, after which one of each pair was newly associated with either an aversive or a neutral stimulus on the following day. Another day later, both stimuli of the original memories were found to trigger enhanced pupil dilation if one was indirectly linked with an aversive stimulus. This effect was independent of whether the declarative associations encoded on day one were accurately retained on the day of testing, and confined to trials on which the indirectly associated stimulus was consciously brought to mind, suggesting an important role for relational memory processes. There was no moderating effect of trait-anxiety. The present study demonstrates that the human defensive system is remarkably adept at quickly anticipating threat based on information acquired over separate events, and gives a first glimpse into how this ability is facilitated by episodic memory.

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It's all about Control: Memory Bias in Anxiety is Restricted to Threat Cues that Signal Controllable Danger

Cited by 7 publications

References 40 publications

Trait Anxiety and Biased Prospective Memory for Targets Associated with Negative Future Events

Trait Anxiety and Biased Prospective Memory for Targets Associated with Negative Future Events

Trait anxiety and the alignment of attentional bias with controllability of danger

Affective integration: episodic mechanisms underlying preconditioned threat responses

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