Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck University of London.
Emotion. 2015 Oct;15(5):544-9. doi: 10.1037/emo0000052. Epub 2015 Mar 16.
According to the predictions of attentional control theory (ACT) of anxiety (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), worry is a central feature of anxiety that interferes with the ability to inhibit distracting information necessary for successful task performance. However, it is unclear how such cognitive control deficits are modulated by task demands and by the emotionality of the distractors. A sample of 31 participants (25 female) completed a novel flanker task with emotional and neutral distractors under low- and high-cognitive-load conditions. The negative-going N2 event-related potential was measured to index participants' level of top-down resource allocation in the inhibition of distractors under high- and low-load conditions. Results showed N2 amplitudes were larger under high- compared with low-load conditions. In addition, under high but not low load, trait worry was associated with greater N2 amplitudes. Our findings support ACT predictions that trait worry adversely affects goal-directed behavior, and is associated with greater recruitment of cognitive resources to inhibit the impact of distracting information under conditions in which cognitive resources are taxed.
根据焦虑的注意控制理论（ACT）的预测（Eysenck、Derakshan、Santos 和 Calvo，2007），担忧是焦虑的一个核心特征，它会干扰抑制成功完成任务所需的分散信息的能力。然而，目前尚不清楚这种认知控制缺陷是如何被任务需求和分心物的情绪性调节的。31 名参与者（25 名女性）的样本在低认知负荷和高认知负荷条件下完成了一项带有情绪和中性分心物的新的侧抑制任务。测量了负向 N2 事件相关电位，以指示参与者在高负荷和低负荷条件下抑制分心物时自上而下的资源分配水平。结果表明，N2 振幅在高负荷条件下比低负荷条件下更大。此外，在高负荷但不是低负荷条件下，特质性担忧与更大的 N2 振幅有关。我们的发现支持 ACT 的预测，即特质性担忧会对目标导向行为产生不利影响，并与在认知资源紧张的情况下，为抑制分散信息的影响而更大程度地调动认知资源有关。
