Working memory capacity in generalized social phobia

Research suggests that understanding complex social cues depends on the availability of cognitive resources (e.g., Phillips, Channon, Tunstall, Hedenstrom, & Lyons, 2008). In spite of evidence suggesting that executive control functioning may impact anxiety (e.g., Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), relatively few studies have examined working memory in individuals with generalized social phobia. Moreover, few studies have examined the role of threat-relevant content in working memory performance in clinically anxious populations. To this end, the present study assessed working memory capacity (WMC) in individuals with generalized social phobia and nonanxious controls using an operation span task with threat-relevant and neutral stimuli. Results revealed that nonanxious individuals demonstrated better WMC than individuals with generalized social phobia for neutral words but not for social threat words. Individuals with generalized social phobia demonstrated better WMC performance for threat words relative to neutral words. These results suggest that individuals with generalized social phobia may have relatively enhanced working memory performance for salient, socially relevant information. This enhanced working memory capacity for threat-relevant information may be the result of practice with this information in generalized social phobia.     

Affective valence of words impacts recall from auditory working memory

Abstract

There is limited evidence on the influence of affective stimuli on auditory working memory. The reported study investigated whether emotional auditory words interfere with ongoing auditory processing of words in auditory working memory. On each trial, words with negative, neutral, and positive affective valence were simultaneously presented on three different speakers. Participants recalled the word presented from the centre speaker first and then recalled the words presented from the side speakers. More negative and positive words compared to neutral words were recalled from the centre speaker. After recall of negative and positive words from the centre speaker, the subsequent first recall of words from the side speakers was reduced, regardless of anxiety level of the participant. The emotional interference effect suggests that emotional words interfere with ongoing central processing due to the attentional dwell on the information in auditory working memory.     

Working memory load moderates late attentional bias in social anxiety

The vigilance–avoidance hypothesis suggests that socially anxious individuals attempt to detect signs that they are being evaluated (vigilance) and subsequently direct attention away from such stimuli (avoidance). Although extensive evidence supports vigilance, data concerning subsequent avoidance is equivocal. Drawing from models of attention, the current study hypothesised that working memory load moderates late attentional bias in social anxiety such that avoidance occurs if working memory load is low, and difficulty disengaging attention occurs if working memory load is high. Forty-one undergraduates (19 socially anxious; 22 non-anxious controls) completed a dot-probe task with emotional (happy and disgust) and neutral facial expressions and a concurrent n-back task. Results supported the hypothesis such that socially anxious subjects demonstrated avoidance of disgust faces when working memory load was absent, but had difficulty disengaging attention during high working memory load. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Effect of negative emotional content on attentional maintenance in working memory

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that emotional stimuli may interfere with working memory (WM) processes, but little is known about the process affected. Using a complex span task, the present study investigated the influence of processing negative emotional content on attentional maintenance in WM. In two experiments conducted under articulatory suppression, participants were asked to remember a series of five letters, each of which was followed by an image to be categorised. In half of the trials, the images were negative and in the other half, they were neutral. In both experiments, our results showed longer processing times for emotional stimuli than neutral stimuli, and lower memory performance when participants processed negative stimuli. We propose that emotional stimuli direct more attentional resources towards the processing component of the WM task, thereby reducing the storage capacity available for the items that are to be remembered.     

Altered working memory capacity for social threat words in high versus low social anxiety

ABSTRACT

Background and objectives: Differences in working memory capacity (WMC) have been suggested in individuals with high levels of social anxiety (SA). Specifically, these individuals may preferentially maintain socially threatening material in working memory.

Design and methods: We adapted the digit span task to a series of word span tasks. We assessed WMC for lists of words that varied in terms of their threat-relatedness, in individuals either high or low in SA.

Results: Experiment 1 revealed reduced WMC for socially threatening words in those with high compared to low SA. Importantly, this relative reduction in WMC was driven by the low SA group showing expanded capacity for socially threatening words relative to neutral or generally threatening words. Furthermore, reductions in WMC for social threat were uniquely predicted by SA, and not by other theoretically related constructs such as state general anxiety, trait general anxiety, or depression. Experiment 2 showed that the semantic similarity of the words within each list was not responsible for the differences in WMC between list type or SA group.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that individuals high in SA may fail to upregulate WMC for social information due to the activation of, or rumination upon, socially threatening concepts.     

Individual differences in working memory capacity and divided attention in dichotic listening

The controlled attention theory of working memory suggests that individuals with greater working memory capacity (WMC) are better able to control or focus their attention than individuals with lesser WMC. This relationship has been observed in a number of selective attention paradigms including a dichotic listening task (Conway, Cowan, & Bunting, 2001) in which participants were required to shadow words presented to one ear and ignore words presented to the other ear. Conway et al. found that when the participant’s name was presented to the ignored ear, 65% of participants with low WMC reported hearing their name, compared to only 20% of participants with high WMC, suggesting greater selective attention on the part of high WMC participants. In the present study, individual differences in divided attention were examined in a dichotic listening task, in which participants shadowed one message and listened for their own name in the other message. Here we find that 66.7% of high WMC and 34.5% of low WMC participants detected their name. These results suggest that as WMC capacity increases, so does the ability to control the focus of attention, with high WMC participants being able to flexibly “zoom in” or “zoom out” depending on task demands.     

Attentional networks and visuospatial working memory capacity in social anxiety

Social anxiety is associated with attentional bias and working memory for emotional stimuli; however, the ways in which social anxiety affects cognitive functions involving non-emotional stimuli remains unclear. The present study focused on the role of attentional networks (i.e. alerting, orienting, and executive control networks) and visuospatial working memory capacity (WMC) for non-emotional stimuli in the context of social anxiety. One hundred and seventeen undergraduates completed questionnaires on social anxiety. They then performed an attentional network test and a change detection task to measure visuospatial WMC. Orienting network and visuospatial WMC were positively correlated with social anxiety. A multiple regression analysis showed significant positive associations of alerting, orienting, and visuospatial WMC with social anxiety. Alerting, orienting networks, and high visuospatial WMC for non-emotional stimuli may predict degree of social anxiety.     

Emotion, memory, and attention in the taboo Stroop paradigm

This study tested the binding hypothesis: that emotional reactions trigger binding mechanisms that link an emotional event to salient contextual features such as event location, a frequently recalled aspect of naturally occurring flash-bulb memories. Our emotional events were taboo words in a Stroop color-naming task, and event location was manipulated by presenting the words in different task-irrelevant screen locations. Seventy-two participants named the font color of taboo and neutral words, with instructions to ignore word meaning; in one condition, several words were location consistent (i.e., always occupied the same screen location), whereas in another condition, several colors were location consistent. Then, in a surprise recognition memory test, participants recalled the locations of location-consistent words or colors. Although attention enhanced overall location memory for colors (the attended dimension during color naming), emotion (taboo vs. neutral words) enhanced location memory for words but not colors. These results support the binding hypothesis but contradict the hypothesis that emotional events induce image-like memories more often than non-emotional events.     

Effect of negative emotional content on working memory and long-term memory

In long-term memory, negative information is better remembered than neutral information. Differences in processes important to working memory may contribute to this emotional memory enhancement. To examine the effect that the emotional content of stimuli has on working memory performance, the authors asked participants to perform working memory tasks with negative and neutral stimuli. Task accuracy was unaffected by the emotional content of the stimuli. Reaction times also did not differ for negative relative to neutral words, but on an n-back task using faces, participants were slower to respond to fearful faces than to neutral faces. These results suggest that although emotional content does not have a robust effect on working memory, in some instances emotional salience can impede working memory performance.     

Working memory in social anxiety disorder: better manipulation of emotional versus neutral material in working memory

Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) engage in post-event processing, a form of perseverative thinking. Given that deficits in working memory might underlie perseverative thinking, we examined working memory in SAD with a particular focus on the effects of stimulus valence. SAD (n?=?31) and healthy control (n?=?20) participants either maintained (forward trials) or reversed (backward trials) in working memory the order of four emotional or four neutral pictures, and we examined sorting costs, which reflect the extent to which performance deteriorated on the backward trials compared to the forward trials. Emotionality of stimuli affected performance of the two groups differently. Whereas control participants exhibited higher sorting costs for emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli, SAD participants exhibited the opposite pattern. Greater attention to emotional stimuli in SAD might facilitate the processing of emotional (vs. neutral) stimuli in working memory.     

无关工作记忆表征的负性情绪信息能否捕获视觉注意?一项眼动研究

研究通过分析视觉搜索任务的首次注视点和行为反应时, 探讨无关工作记忆表征的负性情绪信息对视觉注意选择的影响。实验1发现在反映早期注意选择的首次注视点百分率指标上, 不管工作记忆表征的情绪效价如何, 均出现了显著的注意捕获效应; 实验2发现当采用中性情绪靶子刺激时, 首次注视点百分率指标上仍表现出了稳健的注意捕获效应; 在首次注视点持续时间指标上, 实验1和实验2均发现记忆匹配条件的干扰刺激显著小于控制条件的干扰刺激, 表现出注意的快速脱离; 而在行为反应时指标上, 早期的注意捕获效应消失(实验1), 甚至被反转为注意抑制效应(实验2)。这些结果表明在早期注意选择阶段, 记忆驱动的注意捕获效应不受工作记忆表征情绪效价的影响, 但认知控制会在早期注意捕获之后促使注意快速脱离记忆匹配的干扰刺激, 其作用效果受靶子刺激情绪效价的调节。     

Whichever way you choose to categorize,working memory helps you learn

There has been growing interest in the relationship between the capacity of a person's working memory and their ability to learn to categorize stimuli. While there is evidence that working memory capacity (WMC) is related to the speed of category learning, it is unknown whether WMC predicts which strategies people use when there are multiple possible solutions to a categorization problem. To explore the relationship between WMC, category learning, and categorization strategy use, 173 participants completed two categorization tasks and a battery of WMC tasks. WMC predicted the speed of category learning, but it did not predict which strategies participants chose to perform categorization. Thus, WMC does not predict which categorization strategies people use but it predicts how well they will use the strategy they select.     

Whichever way you choose to categorize, working memory helps you learn

There has been growing interest in the relationship between the capacity of a person's working memory and their ability to learn to categorize stimuli. While there is evidence that working memory capacity (WMC) is related to the speed of category learning, it is unknown whether WMC predicts which strategies people use when there are multiple possible solutions to a categorization problem. To explore the relationship between WMC, category learning, and categorization strategy use, 173 participants completed two categorization tasks and a battery of WMC tasks. WMC predicted the speed of category learning, but it did not predict which strategies participants chose to perform categorization. Thus, WMC does not predict which categorization strategies people use but it predicts how well they will use the strategy they select.     

社会排斥对视觉工作记忆容量的影响

采用变化探测范式,考察社会排斥对非社会和社会性刺激视觉工作记忆容量的影响。发现社会排斥组的无意义图形视觉工作记忆容量显著小于社会接纳组,而对生物运动和面孔的记忆容量却显著大于社会接纳组。说明社会排斥对不同属性刺激的视觉工作记忆容量影响不同:社会排斥会损害与归属需要无关的非社会性刺激的记忆容量,而提高与归属需要有关的社会性刺激的记忆容量。     

Cognitive Bias Via the Internet: A Comparison of Web‐Based and Standard Emotional Stroop Tasks in Social Phobia

There is accumulating evidence to suggest that social phobia is associated with attentional bias for words related to social threat. Information processing in individuals with social phobia (n = 87) was investigated in the present study using 2 versions of the emotional Stroop task. Results from a standard emotional Stroop task indicated delayed colour naming of socially threatening words relative to neutral words, in line with previous research, whereas results from a Web‐based emotional Stroop task indicated a facilitation effect, with faster manual indication of colour choice for socially threatening words than for neutral words. Possible explanations for these contrasting findings and issues for further research are discussed.     

The emotional memory effect: Differential processing or item distinctiveness?

A color-naming task was followed by incidental free recall to investigate how emotional words affect attention and memory. We compared taboo, nonthreatening negative-affect, and neutral words across three experiments. As compared with neutral words, taboo words led to longer color-naming times and better memory in both within- and between-subjects designs. Color naming of negative-emotion nontaboo words was slower than color naming of neutral words only during block presentation and at relatively short interstimulus intervals (ISIs). The nontaboo emotion words were remembered better than neutral words following blocked and random presentation and at both long and short ISIs, but only in mixed-list designs. Our results support multifactor theories of the effects of emotion on attention and memory. As compared with neutral words, threatening stimuli received increased attention, poststimulus elaboration, and benefit from item distinctiveness, whereas nonthreatening emotional stimuli benefited only from increased item distinctiveness.     

Long-term memory of haptic and visual information in older adults

ABSTRACT

The present study examined haptic and visual memory capacity for familiar objects through the application of an intentional free-recall task with three-time intervals in a sample of 78 healthy older adults without cognitive impairment. A wooden box and a turntable were used for the presentation of haptic and visual stimuli, respectively. The procedure consisted of two phases, a study phase that consisted of the presentation of stimuli, and a test phase (free-recall task) performed after one hour, one day or one week. The analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated that there was a main effect only for the time intervals (F (2,71) = 12.511, p = .001, η² = 0.261), with a lower recall index for the interval of one week compared to the other intervals. We concluded that the memory capacity between the systems (haptic and visual) is similar for long retrieval intervals (hours to days).     

Speech Intelligibility and Recall of Spoken Material Heard at Different Signal‐to‐noise Ratios and the Role Played by Working Memory Capacity

We studied speech intelligibility and memory performance for speech material heard under different signal‐to‐noise (S/N) ratios. Pre‐experimental measures of working memory capacity (WMC) were taken to explore individual susceptibility to the disruptive effects of noise. Thirty‐five participants first completed a WMC‐operation span task in quiet and later listened to spoken word lists containing 11 one‐syllable phonetically balanced words presented at four different S/N ratios (+12, +9, +6, and +3). Participants repeated each word aloud immediately after its presentation, to establish speech intelligibility and later on performed a free recall task for those words. The speech intelligibility function decreased linearly with increasing S/N levels for both the high‐WMC and low‐WMC groups. However, only the low‐WMC group had decreasing memory performance with increasing S/N levels. The memory of the high‐WMC individuals was not affected by increased S/N levels. Our results suggest that individual differences in WMC counteract some of the negative effects of speech noise. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotional prosody effects on verbal memory in older and younger adults

Prosody, or the way things are said, can modify the meaning of utterances making qualitatively different affective prosodies useful for understanding how auditory affective information is processed and remembered. In this study, we collected behavioral data from 225 younger (M age = 20.8 years, SD = 2.5 years; 119 males) and 225 older adults (M age = 71.6 years, SD = 6.5 years; 119 males) in order to examine age differences in emotional prosody effects on verbal memory. Participants were randomly divided into three subgroups according to different prosody listening conditions (positive, negative, and neutral) and prosody effects on a yes–no recognition memory task were investigated. The results showed how older adults who listened to the story read with a neutral prosody remembered more words than those who listened to the same story with a positive or negative prosody. Younger adults showed no valence effects. Our findings highlighted an age and affective prosody interaction that affects remembering in older adults alone.     

Validity of the Rey Visual Design Learning Test in Primary and Secondary School Children

Studies on adults have revealed a disadvantageous effect of negative emotional stimuli on executive functions (EF), and it is suggested that this effect is amplified in children. The present study’s aim was to assess how emotional facial expressions affected working memory in 9- to 12-year-olds, using a working memory task with emotional facial expressions as stimuli. Additionally, we explored how degree of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in typically developing children was related to performance on the same task. Before employing the working memory task with emotional facial expressions as stimuli, an independent sample of 9- to 12-year-olds was asked to recognize the facial expressions intended to serve as stimuli for the working memory task and to rate the facial expressions on the degree to which the emotion was expressed and for arousal to obtain a baseline for how children during this age recognize and react to facial expressions. The first study revealed that children rated the facial expressions with similar intensity and arousal across age. When employing the working memory task with facial expressions, results revealed that negatively valenced expressions impaired working memory more than neutral and positively valenced expressions. The ability to successfully complete the working memory task increased between 9 to 12 years of age. Children’s total problems were associated with poorer performance on the working memory task with facial expressions. Results on the effect of emotion on working memory are discussed in light of recent models and empirical findings on how emotional information might interact and interfere with cognitive processes such as working memory.