Negative Affect, Decision Making, and Attentional Networks

Abstract

This study focuses on whether risk avoidance in decision making depends on negative affect or it is specific to anxious individuals. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task was used to obtain an objective measure in a risk situation with anxious, depressive, and control individuals. The role of attentional networks was also studied using the Attentional Network Test-Interaction (ANT-I) task with neutral stimuli. A significant difference was observed between anxious and depressive individuals in assumed risk in decision making. We found no differences between anxious and normal individuals in the alert, orientation, and congruency effects obtained in the ANT-I task. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between the risk avoidance and the indexes of alertness, orienting, and control. Future research shall determine whether emotionally relevant stimulation leads to attentional control deficit or whether differences between anxious and no anxious individuals are due to the type of strategy followed in choice tasks.

15 Minutes of Attention in Class: Variability of Heart Rate, Personality, Emotion and Chronotype

“…No significant relationships were found between the Chronotype factor with the other psychological variables. Thus, the present data do not support the findings of Hasler et al (2010) (Ortega et al, 2012), or between the interaction between negative affectivity and attention control (Lonigan & Vasey, 2009), as well as the data that suggest emotion as an SA modulator (Cisler & Koster, 2010;Peers & Lawrence, 2009).…”

“…Today we know, for example, that there is interaction between negative affectivity and attention control (Lonigan & Vasey, 2009). Therefore, an individual's ability to regulate emotion can modulate the extent to which attention is directed toward any stimulus or threat (Cisler & Koster, 2010;Peers & Lawrence, 2009) and unless attention control in highly anxious individuals, the processing of stimuli that are not threatening will be low (Ortega, Ramírez, Colmenero, & García-Viedma, 2012) and although the existence of the emotion/attention relationship is clear (Pacheco-Unguetti, Acosta, Callejas, & Lupiáñez, 2010), the same does not happen with the personality/attention relationship; hence the nature of that relationship needs to be defined in terms of objective measures. And the HRV is a biomarker that allows the integration of psychobiological processes precisely in natural contexts, as discussed in this study.…”

The effect of trait anxiety on risk‐taking: Functional coupling between right hippocampus and left insula

“…Trait anxiety is characterized by persistent anxious mood even in the absence of external stress or negative stimuli (Barlow et al, 1984;Mellers, Schwartz, Ho, & Ritov, 1997). People with high trait anxiety are hyperalert and demonstrate attentional biases toward negative stimuli and heightened attentional monitoring even of neutral stimuli (Eysenck et al, 2007;Ortega et al, 2012;Pacheco-Unguetti et al, 2010). Individuals with high trait anxiety are prone to interpret stimuli as being negative and avoid making risky decisions (Eisenberg, Baron, & Seligman, 1998;Giorgetta et al, 2012).…”

“…Individuals with high trait anxiety show attentional biases toward negative stimuli (Eysenck et al, 2007). Anxious individuals show altered attentional control even in neutral environments in which stimuli are not emotionally loaded (Eysenck et al, 2007;Ortega, Ramirez, Colmenero, & Garciaviedma, 2012;Pacheco-Unguetti et al, 2010). This altered attentional control can interfere with executive control processes (Eysenck et al, 2007;Niendam et al, 2012) resulting in potential decrements in rational cognitive functions relying on executive control (Anderson, Carleton, Diefenbach, & Han, 2019;Cisler & Olatunji, 2012).…”