title: Anxiety and retrieval inhibition: support for an enhanced inhibition account.
abstract: Retrieval inhibition of negative associations is important for exposure therapy for anxiety, but the relationship between memory inhibition and anxiety is not well understood-anxiety could either be associated with enhanced or deficient inhibition. The present study tested these two competing hypotheses by measuring retrieval inhibition of negative stimuli by related neutral stimuli. Non-clinically anxious undergraduates completed measures of trait and state anxiety and completed a retrieval induced forgetting task. Adaptive forgetting varied with state anxiety. Low levels of state anxiety were associated with no evidence for retrieval inhibition for either threatening or non-threatening categories. Participants in the middle tertile of state anxiety scores exhibited retrieval inhibition for non-threatening categories but not for threatening categories. Participants in the highest tertile of state anxiety, however, exhibited retrieval inhibition for both threatening and non-threatening categories with the magnitude of retrieval inhibition being greater for threatening than non-threatening categories. The data are in line with the avoidance aspect of the vigilance-avoidance theory of anxiety and inhibition. Implications for cognitive behavioural therapy practices are discussed.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Northwestern University , Evanston , IL , USA.
authors.forename: Mia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nuñez
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Northwestern University , Evanston , IL , USA.
authors.forename: Josh
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gregory
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Northwestern University , Evanston , IL , USA.|b The Family Institute at Northwestern University , Evanston , IL , USA.
authors.forename: Richard E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Zinbarg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010555:Personality Inventory; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Inhibition; anxiety; retrieval-induced forgetting; threat