Attentional bias in anxiety: selective search or defective filtering?

Article Abstract:

Previous studies have shown that anxious individuals are more affected by threatening or distracting stimuli in performing tasks than normal controls. As task complexity increases, the anxious subjects become increasingly more impaired in cognitive efficiency, compared with nonanxious subjects. This two-part study investigated the following four areas as they related attentional capabilities and anxiety: the association of anxiety and attention-focusing abilities; the correlation between anxiety and increasing susceptibility to distraction by neutral stimuli; the correlation between attention deficits and the content of distracting stimuli; and the effect of word content on anxiety. Subjects included both individuals diagnosed with anxiety and normal controls; both groups performed tasks of varying difficulty under conditions of neutral and emotionally charged (threatening) distraction. The results of the first experiment did not indicate any differences in attention focusing or selective search capabilities between the normal control group and the anxious subjects. During the second experiment, anxious patients, normal controls, and recovered anxious patients were examined. When different distractors were present, the anxious individuals were more impaired in selective search capabilities than normal controls. The anxious group showed slower performance in the presence of neutral distractors. However, when the distractors used were emotionally threatening, both the currently anxious group and the recovered group had slowed task performance compared with the normal controls. It is surmised that individuals who are vulnerable to anxiety show a bias favoring threat cues and, in spite of the current mood state of the patient, this remains a characteristic of this type of individual. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Analysis, Causes of, Complications and side effects, Attention (Psychology), Prejudices, Prejudice, Selectivity (Psychology), Attention

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Bias in interpretation of ambiguous sentences related to threat in anxiety

Article Abstract:

Experiments have shown that patients who suffer generalized anxiety tend to pay more attention to threatening information than do normal subjects, and it has been suggested that this bias occurs at a stage prior to the patient's awareness that there is threatening information to process. Despite paying more attention to threatening stimuli, anxious patients do not necessarily recall threatening stimuli any better than nonanxious control subjects. One would expect the opposite to be true. It has also been found that anxious patients are more likely to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening than less anxious, or nonanxious, patients; this is not surprising. In two experiments, 16 currently anxious, 16 recovered anxious, and 16 nonanxious patients were presented with a series of sentences that were either ambiguous or nonambiguous with regard to containing threatening material. In experiment one it was found that currently anxious subjects were more likely than nonanxious subjects to interpret the ambiguous sentences as threatening. Recovered anxious subjects fell somewhere in between the other two groups. Experiment two confirmed these results, and further suggested that the differences in response were due to differences in the interpretive processes of subjects in the groups. Because subjects in the current anxiety group were often depressed, however, it cannot be assumed that the differences found were due solely to the presence of anxiety. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Testing, Threats, Threats (Law)

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Implicit and explicit memory bias in anxiety

Article Abstract:

Implicit memory refers to information that may not be available for recall, but is stored in such a way that it affects the responses of an individual. This phenomenon has been demonstrated in cases such as amnesia, where patients make an appropriate response, but are unaware of any influences on their behavior. Explicit memory refers to the process of recalling information on demand. Clinical studies have shown that individuals may often be biased in their recollection of anxiety-producing information. Three groups composed of 18 individuals who were classified as anxious, recovered from an anxious state, or normal were tested. Each person was given a set of words that had a positive, threatening, or neutral association. Cued recall and word completion tests were then given to each subject using these word sets. The results of measurements of explicit memory did not distinguish normal subjects from those in a state of anxiety. When implicit memory was measured, anxious individuals were more likely to produce threat word completions than positive or neutral. The mechanisms involved in memory biases for threatening information are considered to be different and independent of one another in implicit and explicit memory. The results also implied that threatening words are more easily activated by the individual when he is in a state of anxiety. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Memory

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