Effects of characterological anxiety and situational arousal on the solving of a color-word interference task:...

Stroop color-word stimuli permit examination of relative hemispheric contributions to cognition. Subjects of varying trait anxiety levels underwent situational arousal manipulations. Discrete color-word stimuli were projected to the visual half-fields; motor matching responses were made. Trait anxiety affected left-hemisphere activation. Responding was faster and more accurate for moderate than low trait anxiety; at high levels, the left hemisphere became overactivated and inefficient. Situational arousal facilitated right-hemisphere performance; latencies were shorter and accuracy increased in the aroused compared with the relaxed condition. Situational arousal interacted with trait anxiety; highly trait-anxious subjects had longer latencies and decreased accuracy when relaxed than when aroused. A paradoxical effect of trait anxiety is rigidity and stereotypy of cognitive functioning, impairing ability to assume appropriate alternative cognitive modes.