Attention and anxiety: relationship between alertness and cognitive control with trait anxiety.

Abstract

An experiment is described in which the attentional networks of alertness, orienting and executive control are evaluated in participants with high vs. low trait anxiety, in order to specify its differential efficiency. The alertness network was also manipulated incorporating pleasant and disagreeable affective sounds, in addition to neutral. We obtained an effect of the anxiety level of participants on the functioning of the executive control network. Participants with high anxiety-trait had greater levels of interference, i.e., more problems to control the distracter information, than those of low anxiety-trait, as shown by a greater number of errors and less processing efficiency on task in the interfering conditions. Nevertheless, no differences between groups were found regarding the efficiency of the alertness network in presence of affective sounds. Relevance of the difficulties of control by anxious participants and the absence of effect of the affective sounds is discussed in the context of current cognitive theories of anxiety.