Najmi Sadia, Amir Nader, Frosio Kristen E, Ayers Catherine
a Joint Doctoral Program , San Diego State University/University of California , San Diego , CA , USA.
Cogn Emot. 2015;29(7):1210-23. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2014.975188. Epub 2014 Oct 30.
Poor regulation of emotions may involve impaired attention control. In the current paper, we report the results of two studies examining the interaction of anxiety, attention control and cognitive load. In Study I, using a performance-based task to assess attention control, we examined whether anxiety is associated with impaired attention control, and whether these effects are influenced by working memory load. In Study II, we examined these effects in patients with a diagnosis of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) compared to non-anxious control (NAC) participants. Results of Study I showed that high anxiety was associated with increased attention control, that is decreased interference from distractors, but only under high cognitive load. These results were replicated in Study II such that individuals with GAD showed increased attention control relative to NACs, but only under high cognitive load. These results help clarify previous predictions regarding the effect of anxiety on attention control.
情绪调节不佳可能涉及注意力控制受损。在本论文中，我们报告了两项研究的结果，这些研究考察了焦虑、注意力控制和认知负荷之间的相互作用。在研究I中，我们使用一项基于表现的任务来评估注意力控制，考察焦虑是否与注意力控制受损有关，以及这些影响是否受工作记忆负荷的影响。在研究II中，我们将被诊断为广泛性焦虑症（GAD）的患者与非焦虑对照组（NAC）参与者进行对比，考察了这些影响。研究I的结果表明，高焦虑与注意力控制增强有关，即干扰物的干扰减少，但仅在高认知负荷条件下如此。这些结果在研究II中得到了重复验证，即GAD患者相对于NACs表现出注意力控制增强，但同样仅在高认知负荷条件下如此。这些结果有助于澄清先前关于焦虑对注意力控制影响的预测。
