Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
School of Psychology, Curtin University, Bentley, Australia.
PLoS One. 2018 Oct 16;13(10):e0205720. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205720. eCollection 2018.
Theorists have proposed that heightened anxiety vulnerability is characterised by reduced attentional control performance and have made the prediction in turn that elevating cognitive load will adversely impact attentional control performance for high anxious individuals to a greater degree than low anxious individuals. Critically however, existing attempts to test this prediction have been limited in their methodology and have presented inconsistent findings. Using a methodology capable of overcoming the limitations of previous research, the present study sought to investigate the effect of manipulating cognitive load on inhibitory attentional control performance of high anxious and low anxious individuals. High and low trait anxious participants completed an antisaccade task, requiring the execution of prosaccades towards, or antisaccades away from, emotionally toned stimuli while eye movements were recorded. Participants completed the antisaccade task under conditions that concurrently imposed a lesser cognitive load, or greater cognitive load. Analysis of participants' saccade latencies revealed high trait anxious participants demonstrated generally poorer inhibitory attentional control performance as compared to low trait anxious participants. Furthermore, conditions imposing greater cognitive load, as compared to lesser cognitive load, resulted in enhanced inhibitory attentional control performance across participants generally. Crucially however, analyses did not reveal an effect of cognitive load condition on anxiety-linked differences in inhibitory attentional control performance, indicating that elevating cognitive load did not adversely impact attentional control performance for high anxious individuals to a greater degree than low anxious individuals. Hence, the present findings are inconsistent with predictions made by some theorists and are in contrast to the findings of earlier investigations. These findings further highlight the need for research into the relationship between anxiety, attentional control, and cognitive load.
理论学家提出，焦虑易损性的特征是注意力控制表现降低，并且反过来做出预测，即提高认知负荷会对高焦虑个体的注意力控制表现产生更大的负面影响，而对低焦虑个体的影响较小。然而，至关重要的是，现有的测试这一预测的尝试在方法上受到限制，并且得出了不一致的结果。本研究采用一种能够克服以往研究局限性的方法，旨在研究操纵认知负荷对高焦虑和低焦虑个体抑制性注意力控制表现的影响。高焦虑和低焦虑特质的参与者完成了一个反眼跳任务，要求他们在情绪基调刺激物上执行正眼跳（看向刺激物）或反眼跳（看向刺激物的相反方向），同时记录眼动。参与者在同时施加较小认知负荷或较大认知负荷的条件下完成反眼跳任务。对参与者眼跳潜伏期的分析表明，与低焦虑特质的参与者相比，高焦虑特质的参与者表现出普遍较差的抑制性注意力控制表现。此外，与较小认知负荷相比，施加较大认知负荷的条件导致所有参与者的抑制性注意力控制表现普遍增强。然而，分析并未揭示认知负荷条件对与焦虑相关的抑制性注意力控制表现差异的影响，这表明提高认知负荷并未对高焦虑个体的注意力控制表现产生比低焦虑个体更大的负面影响。因此，本研究结果与一些理论学家的预测不一致，与早期研究的结果也不一致。这些发现进一步强调了需要研究焦虑、注意力控制和认知负荷之间的关系。
