Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, England.
Emotion. 2012 Feb;12(1):8-12. doi: 10.1037/a0026310. Epub 2011 Dec 12.
Some findings suggest that trait anxiety impairs selective attention (e.g., Fox, 1993) while others suggest the opposite (e.g., Murray & Janelle, 2003). Both views may hold some truth if trait anxiety affects different levels of selective attention in opposite directions: trait anxiety might improve spatial attention, or perceptual selection, but weaken postperceptual selection. We used an adaptation of the flanker task (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973) which distinguishes between spatial attention and postperceptual selection (Caparos & Linnell, 2010) to test this hypothesis. Trait anxiety was found to improve spatial attention but not to affect post-perceptual selection. The latter null effect may have resulted from the relatively high perceptual load used in this study. The focusing effect of trait anxiety suggests that anxiety reduces perceptual resources or increases cognitive engagement.
一些研究结果表明，特质焦虑会损害选择性注意（例如，Fox，1993），而另一些研究结果则表明相反的情况（例如，Murray & Janelle，2003）。如果特质焦虑以相反的方向影响选择性注意的不同水平，那么这两种观点可能都有一定的道理：特质焦虑可能会改善空间注意或知觉选择，但会削弱知觉后选择。我们使用了一种侧翼任务的变体（Eriksen & Hoffman，1973），该变体可以区分空间注意和知觉后选择（Caparos & Linnell，2010），以检验这一假设。研究发现，特质焦虑会改善空间注意，但不会影响知觉后选择。后者的零效应可能是由于本研究中使用的相对较高的知觉负荷所致。特质焦虑的聚焦效应表明，焦虑会减少知觉资源或增加认知投入。
