Does trait anxiety impair inhibitory control processes in an RSVP paradigm? Evidence from ERPs

Attentional control theory (ACT) posits that anxiety impairs inhibitory control. However, whether this deficit is general or specific to negative distractors remains debated. This study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate differences in inhibitory-control-related processing between individuals with high and low trait anxiety under varying emotional distractor contexts. The final analysis sample comprised 24 high-trait-anxiety (HTA) and 24 low-trait-anxiety (LTA) participants who completed a modified rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. They were instructed to identify a first target (T1), presented against a negative or neutral emotional background image overlaid with colored squares and embedded in a continuous stream of neutral landscape distractors, followed by a second target (T2) presented after a short (200 ms) or long (600 ms) stimulus-onset asynchrony. The analysis focused on the T2-elicited late positive potential (LPP), a neural marker of resource allocation to T2 under T1 background interference. Behaviorally, participants showed a reliable attentional blink effect, with lower T2 accuracy at Lag 2 than at Lag 6. Background valence also affected performance, with lower overall accuracy following negative than neutral backgrounds. The ERP results revealed a significant Group × Background Valence interaction on the T2-LPP. In the HTA group, LPP amplitudes were smaller following negative than neutral backgrounds. Under neutral backgrounds, T2-LPP amplitudes were larger in HTA than in LTA. These findings suggest that high trait anxiety is associated with valence-dependent alterations in later resource allocation during emotional distraction, reflected in a context-dependent T2-LPP pattern rather than a uniform reduction in inhibitory control.