The role of trait anxiety in attention and memory‐related biases to threat: An event‐related potential study

Berggren, Nick; Eimer, Martin · 2021 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13742

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Summary

This study investigates how individual differences in trait anxiety influence attentional and memory-related biases toward threat, specifically examining whether these biases occur during initial attentional selection or subsequent working memory maintenance. While threat-related stimuli generally capture attention more rapidly than neutral or positive stimuli, it remains unclear if this advantage extends to working memory storage and how trait anxiety modulates these processes. The authors aimed to disentangle these stages by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) during a hybrid visual search and working memory task. Participants were pre-screened and divided into low and high trait anxiety groups based on State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores. They performed a task requiring them to encode the identity of an emotional face (angry or happy) presented alongside a neutral face, maintain it in working memory during a delay, and then match it to a probe face. EEG data were recorded to measure the N2pc component, an index of attentional selection, and the Contralateral Delay Activity (CDA), an index of working memory maintenance. Behavioral results showed a general "anger superiority effect," with faster reaction times and fewer errors for angry faces compared to happy faces, regardless of anxiety level. ERP analysis revealed that both low and high anxious individuals exhibited earlier and larger N2pc components for angry faces during encoding, indicating a universal attentional bias toward threat, though this bias was marginally stronger in the high anxious group. Crucially, the study found a dissociation in working memory maintenance: only high anxious individuals showed larger CDA amplitudes for angry faces compared to happy faces. Low anxious individuals showed no significant difference in CDA amplitudes between emotional expressions. Furthermore, these anxiety-related modulations were specific to the encoding phase; no group differences were observed in N2pc components or behavioral performance during the probe phase. The findings suggest that while attentional selection biases toward threat are present in all individuals, biases in working memory maintenance are specific to those with high trait anxiety. This indicates that trait anxiety not only modulates the magnitude of threat biases but also determines which stages of visual processing are affected. The results provide electrophysiological evidence that high anxious individuals prioritize threat representations in working memory, potentially contributing to their heightened distractibility and anxiety-related symptoms.

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• stress arousal performance