The Effect Of Anxiety On Emotional Recognition

Anxiety is the anticipation of future threats.Anxious individuals often show muscle tension,alert preparation and avoidance behaviors for future dangers.At present,cognitive biases,especially memory processing,is the focus of many researchers,while the evidence for anxiety-related cognitive memory biases is still insufficient and conclusions from different studies are inconsistent.Trait anxiety is a relatively stable personality trait with individual differences.It has been found that individuals with high trait anxiety and patients with anxiety disorder have a high degree of similarity in behavioral and cognitive functions,so trait anxiety is called the pre-existence form of anxiety disorder.So far,it is not clear whether there is a negative bias in the cognitive memory processing of individuals with high trait anxiety.In fact,anxiety differs not only in personality traits but also in levels of anxiety.State anxiety is a common emotion in daily life and a transient emotional experience.It is a physiological arousal and subjective feeling(such as tension and fear)generated along with environmental changes.In this study,both aspects of anxiety(trait and state anxiety)were included in the range of independent variables to measure whether there was a negative bias in cognitive processing of recognition memory.Experiment 1 used the induced/non-induced anxiety imaging experiment operation divided the subjects into four groups according to high and low trait anxiety and high and low state anxiety(high trait-high state anxiety group,high trait-low state anxiety group,low trait-high state anxiety group,low trait-low state anxiety group).Subjects were asked to complete the classic memory recognition task.The results showed that all subjects' cognitive memory discriminative index(d')for negative words were lower than neutral words and positive words,but high state anxiety level increased the d' for negative words,and this increase was not related to subject's trait anxiety.In addition,electrophysiological results supported the discovery of behavioral results.When subjects were under high state anxiety condition,the N400(250-500ms)latency of the right parietal region caused by negative new words was significantly earlier than the N400 latency at low state anxiety levels.These results suggested that memory bias toward negative events was affected by state anxiety rather than trait anxiety.According to dual-process models,recognition judgment is supported by distinct with familiarity and recollection.Recollection is participant response studied item as recognition accompanying by specific details of the study episode,and familiarity refers to the overall familiarity of the learned project and couldn't accurately recall its specific information.Experiment 2 did not induce the state anxiety of the subjects,but measured the state anxiety score of the subjects in the natural state.And combining with the trait anxiety score,the subjects were divided into four groups(high trait-high state anxiety group,high trait-low state anxiety group,low trait-high state anxiety group,low trait-low state anxiety group).We used the ‘remember/know' procedure to segregate the recognition process by recollection or familiarity driven,and explored the effect of trait and state anxiety to recognition procession of recollection.The behavioral results showed that in terms of decision criteria,the group with high trait anxiety was lower than the control group,and the subjects with high trait anxiety had looser criteria.No effect of anxiety was found on the d'.However,electrophysiological index(recollection-late parietal LPC,500-800ms)showed that in the high trait anxiety group,the old/new effect of negative words(remember-new)was greater than that of neutral words,while in the low trait anxiety group,there was no difference.Individuals with high trait anxiety have recollection preference for negative stimuli.In the low state anxiety group,the old/new effect LPC(remember-new)of negative words was greater than that of neutral words,while there was no difference in the high state anxiety group.These results suggested that individuals are more likely to avoid negative stimuli under the condition of natural high state anxiety.To sum up,when state anxiety is induced by experimental operation(external conditions),trait anxiety has no negative memory bias in recognition memory,while state anxiety has significant negative memory processing bias in recognition memory.When the anxiety state of the subjects was generated naturally rather than triggered by the experimental operation,it was founded that individuals with high state anxiety were more inclined to avoid negative stimulus,while individuals with high trait anxiety had a preference for negative stimulus.State anxiety under different conditions affects individuals' preference for recognition memory.In addition,state anxiety induced by external factors may have greater influence on recognition memory and even affect the recognition preference of individuals with trait anxiety,and further experiments were needed to explore.