Medical Science Division, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Division of Psychology, Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCN), Brunel University London, Uxbridge, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2018 Dec 17;13(12):e0208248. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208248. eCollection 2018.
Two influential theories relating to personality traits, i.e. arousal-based theory (ABT) and attentional control theory (ACT), made predictions on how neuroticism may affect task performance. ABT suggested that high neurotics perform worse than low neurotics in all difficult tasks, whereas they perform similar in easy tasks. On the other hand, ACT suggested that high neurotics perform worse than low neurotics only if the task relies on central executive functions of working memory (WM), such as switching or inhibition. However, currently it is still unclear whether neuroticism affects all difficult tasks, as proposed by ABT, or whether it is specific to certain tasks, as proposed by ACT. To test this, we used the Cambridge Neuropsychological Tasks Automated Battery (CANTAB) as our test tool and we selected three working memory tasks which tested the effect of neuroticism on both the central executive system (CES) and the WM storage system (i.e. visuospatial sketchpad) in 21 low and 24 high neurotics. Results showed that high neurotics, as compared to low neurotics, exhibited lower performance only when the working memory task is specifically associated with switching and/or inhibition, but not in a task which is associated with the visuospatial sketchpad. We conclude that the results support the ACT rather than the ABT, because high levels of neuroticism impaired behavioural performance specifically in demanding tasks associated with switching and inhibition, but not in tasks associated with the visuospatial sketchpad.
两种有影响力的人格特质理论，即基于唤醒的理论（ABT）和注意力控制理论（ACT），对神经质如何影响任务表现做出了预测。ABT 认为，高神经质者在所有困难任务中的表现都不如低神经质者，而在简单任务中表现则相似。另一方面，ACT 认为，只有当任务依赖于工作记忆（WM）的中央执行功能（如切换或抑制）时，高神经质者的表现才会不如低神经质者。然而，目前仍不清楚神经质是否像 ABT 所提出的那样影响所有困难任务，还是像 ACT 所提出的那样特定于某些任务。为了检验这一点，我们使用了剑桥神经心理学任务自动电池（CANTAB）作为测试工具，我们选择了三个工作记忆任务，这些任务测试了神经质对中央执行系统（CES）和 WM 存储系统（即视觉空间画板）的影响，涉及 21 名低神经质者和 24 名高神经质者。结果表明，与低神经质者相比，高神经质者只有在工作记忆任务与切换和/或抑制特别相关时，表现才会更低，而在与视觉空间画板相关的任务中则不会。我们得出结论，结果支持 ACT 而不是 ABT，因为高水平的神经质会特别损害与切换和抑制相关的高要求任务的行为表现，而不会损害与视觉空间画板相关的任务的行为表现。
