title: Can auditory deviant stimuli temporarily suspend cognitive processing? Evidence from patients with anxiety.
abstract: While anxiety is typically thought to increase distractibility, this notion mostly derives from studies using emotionally loaded distractors presented in the same modality as the target stimuli and tasks involving crosstalk interference. We examined whether pathological anxiety might also increase distractibility for emotionally neutral irrelevant sounds presented prior to target stimuli in a task where these stimuli do not compete for selection. Patients with anxiety and control participants categorized visual digits preceded by task-irrelevant sounds that changed on rare trials (auditory deviance). Both groups exhibited an equivalent increase in response times following a deviant sound but patients showed a reduction of response accuracy, which was entirely due to an increase in response omissions. We conclude that the involuntary capture of attention by unexpected stimuli may, in patients with anxiety, result in a temporary suspension of cognitive activity.
authors: a Department of Psychology & Institute of Health Sciences (iUNICS) , University of the Balearic Islands , Palma , Spain.|b Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Palma (IdISPa ), Palma , Spain.
authors: Antonia P
authors: AP
authors: Pacheco-Unguetti
authors: a Department of Psychology & Institute of Health Sciences (iUNICS) , University of the Balearic Islands , Palma , Spain.|c Quirón Palmaplanas Hospital , Palma , Spain.
authors: Joan Miquel
authors: JM
authors: Gelabert
authors: a Department of Psychology & Institute of Health Sciences (iUNICS) , University of the Balearic Islands , Palma , Spain.|b Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Palma (IdISPa ), Palma , Spain.|d School of Psychology , University of Western Australia , Perth , Australia.
authors: Fabrice B R
authors: FB
authors: Parmentier
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Auditory–visual oddball task; Deviance distraction; Deviant sounds; Pathological anxiety