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Attentional control theory (ACT) was proposed to account for trait anxiety's effects on cognitive performance. According to ACT, impaired processing efficiency in high anxiety is mediated through inefficient executive processes that are needed for effective attentional control. Here we review the central assumptions and predictions of ACT within the context of more recent empirical evidence from neuroimaging studies. We then attempt to provide an account of ACT within a framework of the relevant cognitive processes and their associated neural mechanisms and networks, particularly the fronto-parietal, cingular-opercula, and default mode networks. Future research directions, including whether a neuroscience-informed model of ACT can provide a platform for novel neurocognitive intervention for anxiety, are also discussed.

Positive schizotypy has been employed as a unitary construct in previous experimental research despite the phenomenological heterogeneity of the schizotypal experiences that it describes. In the present paper, we report two psychometric studies on the Unusual Experiences (UE) scale, a widely employed measure of positive schizotypy from the Oxford –Liverpool Inventory for Feeling and Experiences (O-LIFE; Mason, Claridge, & Jackson, 1995). Study 1 (N = 829) explored the factor structure of UE and model fit was assessed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Study 2 (N = 108) evaluated the validity of the factors by employing well-established measures of schizotypy related to positive symptomatology. The results supported a theoretically meaningful 3-factor solution: UE1 Unusual perceptions, UE2 Unusual salience/reality monitoring, and UE3 Unusual beliefs. The new subscales had adequate psychometric properties. We propose that the new subscales have the potential of improving research cohesion, motivating further research and enhancing understanding of experimental correlates of positive schizotypy.

Objectives In the context of Grand Slam tennis, we sought to examine how situational pressure and prior errors can disrupt subsequent performance in elite performers. Methods A retrospective analysis of more than 650,000 points across 12 Grand Slam tennis tournaments from 2016 to 2019 was conducted to identify pressurised in-game moments and unforced errors. A scoring system was used to index situational pressure based on the current match situation (e.g., break points, stage of the match) on a point-by-point basis. The occurrence of performance errors was identified based on double faults and unforced errors, as instances of controllable mistakes. Results A mixed effects logistic regression model revealed that an increase in the pressure index (a 1–5 score) significantly increased the probability of a performance error (ps Conclusions These findings extend our understanding of how ongoing feedback from prior mistakes may further exacerbate the effects of pressure on performance.

This Special Issue of Cognition and Emotion addresses one of the cardinal concerns of affective science, which is overlapping and distinctive features of anxiety and depression. A central finding in the study of anxiety and depression is that they are moderately highly correlated with each other. This leads us to the question: What is behind this co-occurrence? Possible explanations relate to poor discriminant validity of measures; both emotional states are associated with negative affect; stressful life events; impaired cognitive processes; they share a common biological/genetic diathesis. However, despite a set of common (nonspecific) features, anxiety and depression are clearly not identical emotional states. Differences between them might be best viewed, for example, through their heterogeneous and multi-layered nature, adaptive functions and relations with regulatory processes, positive affect, and motivation or complex cognitive processes. In this introduction we consider several approaches (e.g. functional approach; tripartite model and content-specificity hypothesis) to which most research in this Special Issue is relevant. In addition, we have asked contributors to this Special Issue to indicate how their own studies on comparisons between anxiety and depression and models on anxiety and depression move this area of research to more mature science with applicability.

Highlights • Controlled experiment on functional connectivity-based real-time fMRI neurofeedback. • Reduced anxiety levels in the experimental group after neurofeedback training. • Altered activity and connectivity in neurofeedback ROIs in the experimental group. • Increased resting state functional connectivity in the PCC in the experimental group., High levels of trait anxiety are associated with impaired attentional control, changes in brain activity during attentional control tasks and altered network resting state functional connectivity (RSFC). Specifically, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to anterior cingulate cortex (DLPFC – ACC) functional connectivity, thought to be crucial for effective and efficient attentional control, is reduced in high trait anxious individuals. The current study examined the potential of connectivity-based real-time functional magnetic imaging neurofeedback (rt-fMRI-nf) for enhancing DLPFC – ACC functional connectivity in trait anxious individuals. We specifically tested if changes in DLPFC - ACC connectivity were associated with reduced anxiety levels and improved attentional control. Thirty-two high trait anxious participants were assigned to either an experimental group (EG), undergoing veridical rt-fMRI-nf, or a control group (CG) that received sham (yoked) feedback. RSFC (using resting state fMRI), anxiety levels and Stroop task performance were assessed pre- and post-rt-fMRI-nf training. Post-rt-fMRI-nf training, relative to the CG, the EG showed reduced anxiety levels and increased DLPFC-ACC functional connectivity as well as increased RSFC in the posterior default mode network. Moreover, in the EG, changes in DLPFC – ACC functional connectivity during rt-fMRI-nf training were associated with reduced anxiety levels. However, there were no group differences in Stroop task performance. We conclude that rt-fMRI-nf targeting DLPFC – ACC functional connectivity can alter network connectivity and interactions and is a feasible method for reducing trait anxiety.

Background and Objectives: While the potentially negative effects of pressure on skilled performance have been well studied in laboratory-based research, theoretically driven questions based on rea...

The two most prominent individual differences researchers of the twentieth century were Hans J. Eysenck and Raymond B. Cattell. Both were giants of scientific psychology, each publishing scores of books and hundreds of empirical peer-reviewed journal articles. Influenced by Hebb's distinction between physiological (Intelligence A) and experiential (Intelligence B), Eysenck focused on discovering the underlying biological substrata of intelligence. Analogously, Cattell proposed the Gf–Gc theory which distinguishes between fluid and crystallised intelligence. Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT), a measure primarily of fluid intelligence, was constructed specifically to minimise differences in test bias in IQ scores between different ethnic/racial groups. Within the personality realm, Eysenck adopted a pragmatic three-factor model as measured via the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R) and its variants. In contrast, Cattell employed a lexical approach that resulted in a large number of primary and secondary normal and abnormal personality trait dimensions, measured via the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), and the corresponding Clinical Analysis Questionnaire (CAQ), respectively. Recent molecular genetics findings provide empirical confirmation of Eysenck and Cattell's positions on the biological underpinnings of personality and ability traits, allowing an improved understanding of the causes of individual differences.

This study investigated the characteristics of two distinct mechanisms of attention - stimulus enhancement and stimulus suppression - using an event-related potential (ERP) approach. Across three experiments, participants viewed sparse visual search arrays containing one target and one distractor. The main results of Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that whereas neural signals for stimuli that are not inherently salient could be directly suppressed without prior attentional enhancement, this was not the case for stimuli with motivational relevance (human faces). Experiment 3 showed that as task difficulty increased, so did the need for suppression of distractor stimuli. It also showed the preferential attentional enhancement of angry over neutral distractor faces, but only under conditions of high task difficulty, suggesting that the effects of distractor valence on attention are greatest when there are fewer available resources for distractor processing. The implications of these findings are considered in relation to contemporary theories of attention.

Introduction\ud \ud Anxiety is known to impair attentional control particularly when Task demands are high. Neuroimaging studies generally support these behavioral findings, reporting that anxiety is associated with increased (inefficient) activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during attentional control Tasks. However, less is known about the relationship between worry (part of the cognitive dimension of trait anxiety) and DLPFC/ACC function and connectivity during attentional control. In the present study, we sought to clarify this relationship.\ud \ud Methods\ud \ud Forty‐one participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a composite Faces and Scenes Task with high and low emotional interference conditions. Individual worry levels were assessed using the Penn State Worry Questionnaire.\ud \ud Results\ud \ud During high but not low emotional interference, worry was associated with increased activity in ACC, DLPFC, insula, and inferior parietal cortex. During high emotional interference, worry was also associated with reduced functional connectivity between ACC and DLPFC. Trait anxiety was not associated with changes in DLPFC/ACC activity or connectivity during either Task condition.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud \ud The results are consistent with cognitive models that propose worry competes for limited processing resources resulting in inefficient DLPFC and ACC activity when Tasks demands are high. Limitations of the present study and directions for future work are discussed.

According to vigilance-avoidance theory, repressors have an avoidant interpretive bias, i.e., they interpret ambiguous self-relevant situations in a nonthreatening fashion. This study sought to demarcate the range of situations associated with avoidant interpretive bias in repressors.Four groups of participants, representing the four combinations of low- and high-trait anxiety and defensiveness, were identified. Those low in trait anxiety and high in defensiveness were categorized as repressors.Participants (N = 163) rated their likelihood of making both threatening and nonthreatening interpretations of 32 ambiguous scenarios over four domains: social, intellectual, physical, and health. Half the scenarios were self-relevant and half were other relevant. Brief measures of state anxiety were taken after each likelihood rating.Repressors displayed an avoidant interpretive bias for ambiguous threats in the social and intellectual domains but not the health or physical domains. This was due to repressors' low level of trait anxiety rather than their high defensiveness.Individuals high in trait anxiety are especially sensitive to situations involving social evaluation but not those characterized by danger to their health or physical well-being.

Investigating problem-solving performance, Ishida, H. (2005). College students’ perfectionism and task-strategy inefficience: Why their efforts go unrewarded? Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 208–215. Found high levels of perfectionism were associated with lower efficiency. Aiming to replicate and further explore this finding, the present study investigated how two dimensions of perfectionism (high standards, discrepancy between expectations and performance) predicted efficiency in proof-reading performance. N = 96 students completed a proof-reading task involving the detection of spelling, grammar, and format errors. When error-detection performance was subjected to signal detection analysis, high standards correlated positively with the number of incorrectly detected errors (false alarms). Moreover, when task-completion time was taken into account, high standards were negatively correlated with efficiency (accuracy/time). In comparison, discrepancy correlated negatively with the number of correctly detected errors (hits) and positively with a conservative response bias. The findings show that perfectionistic standards are associated with reduced efficiency demonstrating the importance of considering invested time, errors, and response bias when investigating the relationship between perfectionism and performance.

This study used contextual stress measurement to look at the occupational sequelae of stress. One hundred and five civil aviation pilots were interviewed. Events and difficulties were dated and rated for contextual threat; dating information was also obtained for distress symptoms and air traffic incidents. There were significant relationships between stress and air incidents, between stress and distress, and between distress and incidents. Some symptoms (sleep disturbances, loss of energy and tiredness) were more likely to be associated with reported incidents than others. The results are in line with previous suggestions that the effect of stress on job performance is via distress. Distress-related sleep disturbances may be particularly crucial. Further work using contextual stress measurement is needed to clarify the causal pathways involved. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A principal components analysis of the ten scales of the Worry Questionnaire revealed the existence of major worry factors or domains of social evaluation and physical threat, and these factors were confirmed in a subsequent item analysis. Those high in trait anxiety had much higher scores on the Worry Questionnaire than those low in trait anxiety, especially on those scales relating to social evaluation. Scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale were negatively related to worry frequency. However, groups of low-anxious and repressed individuals formed on the basis of their trait anxiety and social desirability scores did not differ in worry. It was concluded that worry, especially in the social evaluation domain, is of fundamental importance to trait anxiety.

Low- and high-anxious participants performed arithmetical tasks under task-switching or nontask-switching conditions. These tasks were low or high in complexity. The task on each trial was either explicitly cued or not cued. We assumed that demands on attentional control would be greater in the task-switching condition than in the nontask-switching condition, and would be greater with high-complexity tasks than with low-complexity ones. We also assumed that demands on attentional control would be greater when cues were absent rather than present. According to attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), anxiety impairs attentional control processes required to shift attention optimally within and between tasks. We predicted that there would be greater negative effects of high state anxiety in the task-switching condition than in the nontask-switching condition. Our theoretical predictions were supported, suggesting that state anxiety reduces attentional control.

Effects of anxiety on the antisaccade task were assessed. Performance effectiveness on this task (indexed by error rate) reflects a conflict between volitional and reflexive responses resolved by inhibitory processes (Hutton, S. B., & Ettinger, U. (2006). The antisaccade task as a research tool in psychopathology: A critical review. Psychophysiology, 43, 302–313). However, latency of the first correct saccade reflects processing efficiency (relationship between performance effectiveness and use of resources). In two experiments, high-anxious participants had longer correct antisaccade latencies than low-anxious participants and this effect was greater with threatening cues than positive or neutral ones. The high- and low-anxious groups did not differ in terms of error rate in the antisaccade task. No group differences were found in terms of latency or error rate in the prosaccade task. These results indicate that anxiety affects performance efficiency but not performance effectiveness. The findings are interpreted within the context of attentional control theory (Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7 (2), 336–353).

Subjects who were either high or low in trait anxiety received mood-induction procedures designed to produce either an anxious or a nonanxious mood. The amount of worrying that these subjects engaged in when cued with one of their current worries was greater among those high in trait anxiety than among those low in trait anxiety. In addition, anxious mood induction produced more worrying initially than did nonanxious mood induction. In general terms, the findings indicated that anxious induced mood can facilitate the initiation of the worry process, but its subsequent maintenance is far more a function of trait anxiety. It was concluded that prolonged worry occurs mainly in those individuals who have highly organized clusters of worry-related information stored in long-term memory.

Over the last three decades there has been an accumulation of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies reporting that aberrant functional networks may underlie cognitive deficits and other symptoms across a range of psychiatric diagnoses. The use of pharmacological MRI and 1H-Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (1H-MRS) has allowed researchers to investigate how changes in network dynamics are related to perturbed excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission in individuals with psychiatric conditions. More recently, changes in functional network dynamics and excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) neurotransmission have been linked to early childhood trauma, a major antecedents for psychiatric illness in adulthood. Here we review studies investigating whether perturbed network dynamics seen across psychiatric conditions are related to changes in E/I neurotransmission, and whether such changes could be linked to childhood trauma. Whilst there is currently a paucity of studies relating early traumatic experiences to altered E/I balance and network function, the research discussed here lead towards a plausible mechanistic hypothesis, linking early traumatic experiences to cognitive dysfunction and symptoms mediated by E/I neurotransmitter imbalances.

Introverted and extraverted subjects performed a continuous recognition memory task, indicating on a 5-point scale whether each item was new or old. Analysis of the data by signal detection theory measures indicated that introverts adopted a more stringent response criterion than extraverts, but that there was no effect of introversion-extraversion on sensitivity or d’. Some of the theoretical implications of these and other findings are discussed. Since selfreported arousal levels were unrelated to performance, it may be inappropriate to interpret the effects of introversion-extraversion in terms of differences in chronic arousal level between introverts and extraverts.

Words associated with high monetary incentives were better recalled than those associated with low incentives. It was found that high-incentive words were rehearsed more than low-incentive words and that the memorial advantage of high-incentive items was greater when the retrieval cues were weakly associated to the list words than when they were strong associates. It was concluded that the disproportionate amount of rehearsal given to high-incentive items led to greater elaboration or extensiveness of encoding, which in turn produced the observed memorial superiority of high-incentive items.