Anxiety, Inhibition, Efficiency, and Effectiveness

Abstract

Effects of anxiety on the antisaccade task were assessed. Performance effectiveness on this task (indexed by error rate) reflects a conflict between volitional and reflexive responses resolved by inhibitory processes (Hutton, S. B., & Ettinger, U. (2006). The antisaccade task as a research tool in psychopathology: A critical review. Psychophysiology, 43, 302-313). However, latency of the first correct saccade reflects processing efficiency (relationship between performance effectiveness and use of resources). In two experiments, high-anxious participants had longer correct antisaccade latencies than low-anxious participants and this effect was greater with threatening cues than positive or neutral ones. The high- and low-anxious groups did not differ in terms of error rate in the antisaccade task. No group differences were found in terms of latency or error rate in the prosaccade task. These results indicate that anxiety affects performance efficiency but not performance effectiveness. The findings are interpreted within the context of attentional control theory (Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7 (2), 336-353).

Exploring the function of selective attention and hypervigilance for threat in anxiety

“…Similar findings of non-specific hypervigilance and threat-specific difficulties in inhibition have been observed using the anti-saccade paradigm (Derakshan et Using this rationale, Derakshan et al (2009) presented face cues (angry, happy or neutral) in peripheral locations and found that the latency of the accurate first saccades in the antisaccade condition were significantly longer in a high (vs. low) trait anxious group when the cue was an angry (but not happy or neutral) face. Anxiety did not affect the error rate in the antisaccade condition (as indexed by exogenous saccades to the cue).…”

“…While eye tracking studies do not support the notion of specific attentional capture by threat in anxiety (Derakshan et al, 2009;Reinholdt-Dunne et al, 2012;Richards et al, 2012), the evidence suggests that there may be non-specific hypervigilance in anxiety as reflected in increased attentional capture by taskirrelevant threat and non-threat stimuli (Gerdes et al, 2008;). The findings also indicate that there is a delay in executing endogenous saccades to a target in the presence of task-irrelevant threat in anxious individuals (Derakshan et al, 2009;Reinholdt-Dunne et al, 2012;Richards et al, 2012) where this impaired inhibition occurs for threats presented across a broad region of the visual field (Richards et al, 2012).…”

“…They concluded that there was a general attentional control deficit in anxiety. These studies provide some evidence to indicate that the impairment in attentional control is associated with a specific difficulty in inhibiting threat processing even if threat stimuli are presented outside foveal vision (Derakshan et al, 2009;Reinholdt-Dunne et al, 2012), or that anxiety is associated with non-specific hypervigilance ).…”

“…These findings have not typically been replicated in studies using more complex visual displays (e.g., Derakshan & Koster, 2010;Huijding et al, 2011). Furthermore, some eye tracking evidence suggests that there is capture of overt attention by task-irrelevant threat in anxiety (Miltner et al, 2004); however, more recent studies have questioned this finding by using traditional eye tracking paradigms to show that anxious individuals are able to suppress exogenous saccades to threat stimuli (Derakshan et al, 2009;Richards et al, 2012). Findings of delayed disengagement from threatening distractors in eye tracking studies could be related to selective attention to threat (Rinck et al, 2005).…”

Development of a Cued Pro- and Antisaccade Paradigm: An Indirect Measure to Explore Automatic Components of Sexual Interest

“…Apart from studies in clinical populations that demonstrated disorder-specific biased emotional information processing within pro-and antisaccade paradigms (e.g., Aichert et al, 2013;Derakshan, Ansari, Hansard, Shoker, & Eysenck, 2009;Mueller et al, 2012) there are hitherto no studies on pro-and antisaccade performance as a reaction to sexual information.…”