Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Cognitive models of threat processing maintain that threat, depending on the task at hand, can \nspeed (when task relevant) or impair (when task irrelevant) cognitive performance (Pessoa, \n2009). It is generally assumed that attentional bias to threat is modulated by anxiety, with \nincreased anxiety leading to increased bias (Bishop, 2007; Mathews & Mackintosh, 1998). \nEvidence suggests that such biases are not actually specific to anxiety, however, and instead \nform part of a broader personality spectrum of negative affect or neuroticism (Clark & Watson, \n1991), of which anxiety is but one facet. Further, such emotion-linked attentional biases to threat \nmay be modulated not only by task demands, but also by individual differences in ‘regulatory’ \ntraits, including emotion regulation and attentional control capacity. Most previous studies have \nfocused on the influence of threat on spatial and temporal aspects of attention. It has recently \nbeen suggested, however, that threat material may also influence higher-level cognitive control \nprocesses, such as response inhibition. In the current thesis, I examine the influence of threat \nrelated material on different tasks of cognitive control: the Stroop task, the Flanker task, and the \nStop-signal inhibition task. In addition, I examine the influence of trait negative emotion \n(neuroticism) and regulatory traits (emotion regulation and attentional control) on selective \nprocessing of threat material. I set out to test, for the first time, the idea that individual differences in negative emotionality (neuroticism) and attentional control/emotion regulation \nwould interact to predict the impact of threatening material on cognitive control. More \nspecifically, that good attentional control and/or emotion regulation would ‘buffer’ the effects of \nhigher levels of neuroticism on the impairment of cognitive control by threatening material. \nIn the Flanker tasks, I find evidence for speeded processing of positive emotion, whereas \nperformance in the Stroop task is particularly impaired by threat material. By contrast, in the Stop signal task of response inhibition, I find that response inhibition (stopping) is slowed in the \npresence of angry facial expressions, and such slowing is greater in individuals high in trait \nneuroticism. Further, as predicted, the influence of neuroticism is moderated by individual \ndifferences in emotion regulation, such that good emotion regulation ‘buffers’ the impact of \nneuroticism. The implications of these findings for current cognitive models of threat-processing \nare discussed.
Author: Marcel Meyer
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1544859378