Trait Anxiety Moderates Negative Affect-Modulated Distribution of Visuo-Spatial Attention

Trait anxiety modulates the detection sensitivity of negative affect in speech

“…arousal and anxiety, which is consistent with the underlying neural basis of two-way autonomic nervous system projections across the pre-frontal, limbic and sensory networks of the brain regulating the processing of sensory inputs by the brain [9] - [11]. A number of studies examining visual functions corroborate the above, e.g., contrast, orientation sensitivity, temporal resolution and attentional topography, to list a few [4], [12] - [14]. While similar biases of auditory functions by the individual's internal state under tightly controlled lab environments have been reported directly in the auditory neural networks of animals [15], [16] and behaviourally in humans [17] - [20], whether internal states of humans also influence the perceptual auditory emotion classification in a less controlled, ecologically valid environment is less known, to our knowledge.…”

“…By contrast, the state subscale of the STAI indexes the aforesaid characteristics of subjective anxiety at the given moment of administering the instrument [29], [35], [36]. Findings from the visual sensory modality show the various biases to visual function on account of anxiety but more importantly, point at a close link between anxiety and processing of environmental affective information (e.g., emotions) which may have a bearing on the visual functions [4], [12]- [14], [37], [38]. Along these lines, reports of clear association between anxiety and affective processing, e.g., detection of emotions from acoustic signals in humans have been scarce in the literature, to our knowledge.…”