Anxiety and working memory capacity: A meta-analysis and narrative review.

Moran, Tim P.

doi:10.1037/bul0000051

Cited by 559 publications

(415 citation statements)

References 367 publications

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“…The bifactor model displayed an EF divergent profile for anxiety dimensions; worse performance related to fear and better performance related to distressful thoughts. These results contradict a previous finding on the negative association between anxiety and EF [78]. This difference can be due to a number of factors.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Disentangling unity from diversity in developmental psychopathology

Lst¹,

et al. 2019

Preprint

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150)Developmental psychopathology has been a fruitful space for the investigation of the validity of multidimensionality. Nonetheless, previous studies in the field have not tested a model with a fine-grained division within the internalizing and externalizing spectra that also accounts for the contribution of a general psychopathology factor. The aim of this study is to test the validity and reliability of a theoretically-driven bifactor model with one general dimension and ten specific dimensions of psychopathology:fear, somatic complaints, distressful thoughts, low mood, low motivation/energy, inattention-hyperactivity, temper loss, aggression, noncompliance, and low concern for others. Our study evaluated 2,511 children aged 6-14 years-old from the Brazilian High-Risk Cohort for Psychiatric Disorders. There was support for the model in terms of its fit to the data, reliability, and external validity. Our findings highlight the potential of combined fine-grained approaches with models disentangling unity from diversity in developmental psychopathology.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Disentangling unity from diversity in developmental psychopathology

Lst¹,

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…So previous scarce studies did not found expected enhanced levels of response inhibition in children with AD, and the question is to what extent is inhibition as assessed with laboratory tasks a pure artifact of AD, or a facet that comes to expression in interaction with other disorders such as ADHD. With regard to working memory deficits in anxiety, a recent meta-analytic and theoretical review including child and adult populations found that self-reported and experimentally induced anxiety is associated with poorer performance on working memory measures (Moran 2016). In our meta-analysis we did not find that the ADHD plus AD group had worse performance on measures of working memory as compared to the ADHD alone group, indicating that AD appears to have a protective function as well in those with ADHD.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Clinical Anxiety a Risk or a Protective Factor for Executive Functioning in Youth with ADHD? A Meta-regression Analysis

Marić

Bexkens

Bögels

2018

Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev

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Comorbidity rates between ADHD and anxiety disorders (AD) are high, but little is known about the nature of this cooccurrence. A dominant idea is that AD may intensify some (i.e., attention and working memory) and attenuate other (i.e., inhibition) ADHD symptoms. Results are mixed, potentially because of between-study differences. To investigate this further we performed a meta-regression analysis on 11 studies (n 'ADHD-only' = 695; n 'ADHD + AD' = 608), containing 35 effect sizes on attention, inhibition and working memory. Main results were: (1) no evidence of a negative effect of AD on attention and working memory; (2) better response inhibition in children with ADHD with AD than those with only ADHD (medium ES g = − .40); (3) medication moderated this association: the effect seemed limited to studies that included medication-naïve participants; (4) the difference between the two groups increased with age for attention and with proportion of boys for working memory ability. There was no effect of comorbid disruptive behavior disorder. In conclusion, AD seems to be a protective factor for inhibition problems as assessed with laboratory tasks in ADHD, especially in children who are medication naïve. Further, AD may have a protective function for attention in older children, and for working memory in boys with ADHD. It is therefore important to screen for AD when diagnosing ADHD, and to educate those with comorbid AD about the possible positive function of feeling anxious. Potential negative effects of ADHD medication on inhibition in children with comorbid AD should be considered.

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“…A recent meta-analysis showed that measures of anxiety are related to lower scores on measures of WM capacity (Moran, 2016). Anxiety should enhance the negative effect of a sustained unpleasant state on WM capacity, considering that anxiety can occupy WM (Shackman et al , 2006; Moriya and Sugiura, 2012; Meconi et al , 2014; Qi et al , 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An unpleasant emotional state reduces working memory capacity: electrophysiological evidence

Figueira

Oliveira

Pereira

et al. 2017

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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Emotional states can guide the actions and decisions we make in our everyday life through their influence on cognitive processes such as working memory (WM). We investigated the long-lasting interference that an unpleasant emotional state had on goal-relevant WM representations from an electrophysiological perspective. Participants performed a change detection task that was preceded by the presentation of unpleasant or neutral task-irrelevant pictures in a blocked fashion. We focused on the contralateral delay activity (CDA), an event-related potential that is sensitive to the number of task-relevant items stored in WM. We found that the asymptotic limit for the CDA amplitude was lower during the unpleasant emotional state than during the neutral one; that is, an emotional state was capable of reducing how many task-relevant items the participants could hold in WM. Furthermore, both the individuals who experienced more intrusive thoughts and those who were dispositionally anxious were more susceptible to the influence of the emotional state. We provide evidence that an unpleasant emotional state diminished visual WM for task-relevant items, particularly in susceptible individuals. These results open new avenues to uncover the emotional-cognitive processing that underlies maladaptive WM representations and the role of such processing in the development of mental illness.

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Anxiety and working memory capacity: A meta-analysis and narrative review.

Cited by 559 publications

References 367 publications

Disentangling unity from diversity in developmental psychopathology

Disentangling unity from diversity in developmental psychopathology

Is Clinical Anxiety a Risk or a Protective Factor for Executive Functioning in Youth with ADHD? A Meta-regression Analysis

An unpleasant emotional state reduces working memory capacity: electrophysiological evidence

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