Influence of Anxiety on Attention, Learning, Retention and Thinking

Abstract

IN THE investigation of the influence of emotions on psychologic functions by one of us (O. D.), it became apparent that the technical characteristics of many of the tests used more or less commonly by psychiatrists were not known. Consequently, a preliminary study was made to determine the reliability and other characteristics of several of these tests. These results are reported in the first part of this paper, whereas in the second part the results of the influence of anxiety on some of the tests are given. In the third part, the application of these results to the customary psychiatric examination is reviewed.TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SOME CLINICALLY USED TESTS In order to be able to investigate the psychopathologic influences of anxiety on intellectual functions, tests were chosen for the study of attention, learning, retention, memory and thinking. Tests were selected which have been used in psychopathologic research work and in clinical psychiatry. Test scores were obtained in some cases from normal women college students and in some cases from psychiatric patients of the type on whom it was desired to use the tests later for further research. s Attention.-Although the concept of attention is greatly disputed in present day psychology, attention and its disorders have maintained an important place in psychopathology and clinical psychiatry. In our investigations, we were forced to consider the Wundtian distinction between active and passive attention because of the claim of leading psychopathologists that various mental disorders affect these two types of attention independently.1 These authors distinguish between an From the New York

Anxiety and verbal learning.

“…Considerable data on this point have been accumulated in the recent attempt by Taylor, Spence, and their co-workers to conceptualize the anxietylearning problem within the context of Hull's learning theory (16,18). Experiments have shown that anxious 5s perform less well in maze learning (4,12), serial rote learning (10,14,18), in general in more difficult and complex learning tasks. On the other hand, anxious 5s show more rapid conditioning to noxious stimuli (3,16,19).…”

Learning and two kinds of anxiety.

“…That is to say, anxiety is experimentally induced by introducing some form of noxious stimulation. Other studies have focused upon the properties of anxiety, defining it in terms of response measures such as are obtained from systematic observation or from psychometric procedures (3,4,7).…”

Time-order errors in comparative judgments of hurtfulness.

“…Under the effects of the stress conditions we assume that S is less able to attend to the impression of the standard. Evidence from Diethelm and Jones (1) suggests that heightened anxiety interferes with attention and concentration. These 5s then should be primarily involved with the expectancy of the comparison stimulus even for the shorter intrapair interval, resulting in a more negative TOE.…”