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Worry consists of intrusive, repetitive negative thoughts, usually in verbal form, about a future event of uncertain outcome. The excessive occupation of working memory (WM) subsystems by worry-related representations might cause deficits in WM performance and efficiency. Attentional control theory (ACT) predicts that worry occupies the central executive (CE) but not the storage components of WM (i.e., phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad). We tested the effects of worry in visuospatial and verbal WM tasks, with and without binding, in 46 Brazilian undergraduates who were divided into low-worry (LW; n ϭ 21, 11 female) and high-worry (HW; n ϭ 25, 23 female) groups. The HW group presented significantly lower accuracy in the verbal task and higher reaction times (RTs) in the visuospatial task. In the HW group, binding caused lower accuracy in the visuospatial task. The results are discussed from the perspective of ACT, which predicts differential effects of worry on performance and efficiency across WM modalities.

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