Anxiety selectively disrupts visuospatial working memory.
On the basis of a review of the extant literature describing emotion-cognition interactions, the authors propose 4 methodological desiderata for studying how task-irrelevant affect modulates cognition and present data from an experiment satisfying them. Consistent with accounts of the hemispheric asymmetries characterizing withdrawal-related negative affect and visuospatial working memory (WM) in prefrontal and parietal cortices, threat-induced anxiety selectively disrupted accuracy of spatial but not verbal WM performance. Furthermore, individual differences in physiological measures of anxiety statistically mediated the degree of disruption. A second experiment revealed that individuals characterized by high levels of behavioral inhibition exhibited more intense anxiety and relatively worse spatial WM performance in the absence of threat, solidifying the authors' inference that anxiety causally mediates disruption. These observations suggest a revision of extant models of how anxiety sculpts cognition and underscore the utility of the desiderata.
Shackman
Alexander J
AJ
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 59706, USA.
Sarinopoulos
Issidoros
I
Maxwell
Jeffrey S
JS
Pizzagalli
Diego A
DA
Lavric
Aureliu
A
Davidson
Richard J
RJ
D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D004576:Electromyography; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex; D011594:Psychometrics; D011930:Reaction Time; D013028:Space Perception; D014481:United States