Hepsomali Piril, Hadwin Julie A, Liversedge Simon P, Degno Federica, Garner Matthew
Department of Psychology, Centre for Innovation in Mental Health-Developmental Lab, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Exp Brain Res. 2019 Apr;237(4):897-909. doi: 10.1007/s00221-018-05466-y. Epub 2019 Jan 17.
Anxiety has been associated with poor attentional control, as reflected in lowered performance on experimental measures of executive attention and inhibitory control. Recent conceptualisations of anxiety propose that individuals who report elevated anxiety symptoms worry about performance and will exert greater cognitive effort to complete tasks well, particularly when cognitive demands are high. Across two experiments, we examined the effect of anxiety on task performance and across two load conditions using (1) measures of inhibitory control (behavioural reaction times and eye-movement responses) and (2) task effort with pupillary and electrocortical markers of effort (CNV) and inhibitory control (N2). Experiment 1 used an oculomotor-delayed-response task that manipulated load by increasing delay duration to create a high load, relative to a low load, condition. Experiment 2 used a Go/No-Go task and load was manipulated by decreasing the No-Go probabilities (i.e., 20% No-Go in the high load condition and 50% No-Go in the low load condition). Experiment 1 showed individuals with high (vs. low) anxiety made more antisaccade errors across load conditions, and made more effort during the high load condition, as evidenced by greater frontal CNV and increased pupillary responses. In Experiment 2, individuals with high anxiety showed increased effort (irrespective of cognitive load), as characterised by larger pupillary responses. In addition, N2 amplitudes were sensitive to load only in individuals with low anxiety. Evidence of reduced performance effectiveness and efficiency across electrophysiological, pupillary, and oculomotor systems in anxiety provides some support for neurocognitive models of frontocortical attentional dysfunction in anxiety.
焦虑与注意力控制不佳有关，这在执行性注意力和抑制控制的实验测量中表现为成绩下降。焦虑的最新概念认为，报告焦虑症状较高的个体担心表现，并会付出更大的认知努力来出色完成任务，尤其是在认知需求较高时。在两项实验中，我们使用（1）抑制控制测量方法（行为反应时间和眼动反应）以及（2）用瞳孔和努力的皮层电活动标记（关联性负变）和抑制控制（N2）来衡量的任务努力程度，研究了焦虑对任务表现的影响，并考察了两种负荷条件下的情况。实验1使用了一种动眼延迟反应任务，通过增加延迟持续时间来操纵负荷，相对于低负荷条件，创造出一种高负荷条件。实验2使用了一种Go/No-Go任务，通过降低No-Go概率来操纵负荷（即高负荷条件下20%的No-Go，低负荷条件下50%的No-Go）。实验1表明，高（与低）焦虑个体在各种负荷条件下做出更多的反扫视错误，并且在高负荷条件下付出更多努力，额叶关联性负变更大和瞳孔反应增加证明了这一点。在实验2中，高焦虑个体表现出更多努力（与认知负荷无关），其特征是瞳孔反应更大。此外，N2波幅仅在低焦虑个体中对负荷敏感。焦虑状态下电生理、瞳孔和动眼系统的表现有效性和效率降低的证据，为焦虑中额叶皮质注意力功能障碍的神经认知模型提供了一些支持。
