Differences In Memory And Physiological Responses In And Out Of The Anxiety Domain

Worry is a transdiagnostic pathological symptom.It is the cardinal symptom of generalized anxiety disorder(GAD)and the significant symptom of almost all anxiety disorders(such as social anxiety disorder,obsessive-compulsive disorder,panic disorder,etc.).Meanwhile,it is also related to other psychopathological processes(such as depression)and physical health.Recently,researchers have made a lot of achievements on the psychological and biological mechanism of worry,but there are still three problems to be further studied.The first is whether there are differences in the memory of the individual to the stimuli inside and outside their own worry domain.The second is whether there are differences in the physiological response of the individual to the stimuli inside and outside their own worry domain.The third is the lack of test of the effectiveness of the worry domain measurement tools.Therefore,it is necessary to test the effectiveness of worry domain measurement tools and the differences of individual memory and physiological response to the stimuli inside and outside their own worry domain.This paper includes the following three studies.In the first study,the Chinese version of worry domain questionnaire(WDQ)was introduced and its applicability was tested in a sample of Chinese college students.Methods: a total of 574 Chinese college students were tested with WDQ,and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory(STAI),Penn State Worry Questionnaire(PSWQ),the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale(CES-D)and Obsessive-compulsive Inventory-revised(OCI-R).One month after the first test,96 people were selected for retest with WDQ.SPSS 25.0 was used for descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis of the questionnaire data,and Mplus 7.4 was used to build Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling(ESEM)of WDQ.The results indicated that:(1)the internal consistency reliabilities of WDQ and its subscales were adequate to excellent,and the correlations of total scale and subscales are moderate to high.(2)The test-retest reliability of WDQ and its subscales were adequate to excellent.(3)The results of ESEM indicated that WDQ fits well in the five factors structure.(4)WDQ total score was moderately to highly correlated with STAI total score,PSWQ total score,CES-D total score and OCI-R total score,indicating that WDQ has good convergent validity.(5)The correlation between the total score of WDQ and obsessive-compulsive thinking is higher than that of obsessive-compulsive behavior,which indicated that WDQ has good divergent validity.In the second study,we investigated whether there were differences in implicit and explicit memory of different emotion valences word stimuli inside and outside their worry domain,and explored the extra variables affecting memory differences.From Xuhui campus of Shanghai Normal University,244 college students were invited to fill in WDQ,and 34 of them who are eligible participated in the experiment.In addition,all participants filled in PSWQ,STAI-T,CES-D and PANAS as control variables.SPSS 25.0 was used for descriptive statistical analysis,one-way ANOVA,paired sample t-test and correlation analysis.The results indicated that:(1)Compared to the stimuli outside their worry domain,individuals have stronger explicit memory to negative stimuli inside their own worry domain,while individuals tend to have stronger implicit memory to negative stimuli inside their own worry domain.(2)There was no significant difference in implicit and explicit memory to positive stimuli inside and outside their own worry domain.(3)There are opposite factors that affect explicit memory bias in individuals.Individuals' explicit memory of threat stimuli inside their worry domain is enhanced,while higher trait anxiety will inhibit the memory bias.(4)Worry degree,depressive symptoms,negative emotions and trait anxiety help to enhance the implicit memory of threat stimuli outside the worry domain.(5)The positive emotion of individual is contribute to enhance the implicit and explicit memory ability.In the third study,BIOPAC MP150 16 channel physiological recorder was used to compare whether the participants had different physiological responses to the video clips inside and outside their own worry domain.The participants in this study are identical as Study 2.The respiratory rate,skin conductance level and heart rate were calculated by Acqknowledge 4.0 software.SPSS 25.0 software was used for descriptive statistical analysis and one-way ANOVA.The results indicated that:(1)the video clips did not make significant physiological changes.(2)There was no significant differences in the physiological response of individuals to different emotion valence stimuli inside and outside their own domain.This paper tested the validity of the worry domain questionnaire in the sample of Chinese college students,and enriches the understanding of worry.The study on memory bias inside and outside the worry domain clarifies inconsistent results in previous studies.Future research should continue to test the results of this paper under different conditions,develop effective treatment for worrisome individuals according to the results of this paper,and test the physiological response differences of individuals to stimuli inside and outside their own worry domain in more optimized experimental design.