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Related Experiment Videos

Why worry? The cognitive function of anxiety.

A Mathews1

  • 1Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5501.

Behaviour Research and Therapy
|January 1, 1990
PubMed
Summary

Anxiety involves cognitive processes that maintain vigilance for danger. This study used information processing methods to show anxious individuals selectively attend to and interpret threats, a key trait in anxiety disorders.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Worry is linked to cognitive processes in anxiety, maintaining vigilance for personal danger.
  • Traditional reliance on self-report for studying worry is insufficient.
  • Information processing provides a robust methodology for investigating cognitive functions in anxiety.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the cognitive functions underlying worry and anxiety.
  • To examine attentional biases and memory accessibility for threatening information in anxious individuals.
  • To differentiate cognitive characteristics of anxious versus depressed mood.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized information processing methodology to study cognitive functions.
  • Summarized existing evidence on attentional biases towards threatening stimuli.
  • Reviewed research on memory accessibility of threat-related information.

Main Results:

  • Anxious subjects demonstrate selective attention to threatening information.
  • Ambiguous events are interpreted in a more threatening manner by anxious individuals.
  • Threatening information is easily activated but not necessarily more accessible in memory.

Conclusions:

  • Selective attentional priority for threat is characteristic of anxious mood, distinguishing it from depressed mood.
  • The ease of adopting this threat-processing mode may contribute to trait anxiety.
  • This cognitive pattern may underlie vulnerability to anxiety disorders.

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