title: The role of hand of error and stimulus orientation in the relationship between worry and error-related brain activity: Implications for theory and practice.
abstract: Anxious apprehension/worry is associated with exaggerated error monitoring; however, the precise mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. The current study tested the hypothesis that the worry-error monitoring relationship involves left-lateralized linguistic brain activity by examining the relationship between worry and error monitoring, indexed by the error-related negativity (ERN), as a function of hand of error (Experiment 1) and stimulus orientation (Experiment 2). Results revealed that worry was exclusively related to the ERN on right-handed errors committed by the linguistically dominant left hemisphere. Moreover, the right-hand ERN-worry relationship emerged only when stimuli were presented horizontally (known to activate verbal processes) but not vertically. Together, these findings suggest that the worry-ERN relationship involves left hemisphere verbal processing, elucidating a potential mechanism to explain error monitoring abnormalities in anxiety. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Yanli
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Tim P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Moran
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Hans S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Schroder
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Jason S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Moser
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anxiety; ERN; Laterality; Verbal processing; Worry