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01-08-2012 | Original Article

The Impact of Attention Style on Directed Forgetting Among High Anxiety Sensitive Individuals

Auteurs: Melanie Noel, Tracy L. Taylor, Chelsea K. Quinlan, Sherry H. Stewart

Gepubliceerd in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Uitgave 4/2012

Abstract

Results of research investigating the link between anxiety sensitivity (AS) and memory biases toward threat have been inconsistent. There may be subgroups of high AS individuals who differ in their preferred mode of attending to threat-related information, thereby impacting memory. The impact of individual attention style on intentional forgetting of words varying in emotional valence was examined among individuals with varying levels of AS. By incorporating an inhibition of return (IOR) task (to yield a proxy of attentional allocation) within the study phase of the item-method directed forgetting paradigm, we categorized high, moderate, and low AS individuals according to their attention style in response to threat stimuli: ‘threat attenders’ (small IOR effect) and ‘threat avoiders’ (large IOR effect). Among high AS individuals only, ‘threat avoiders’ showed greater intentional forgetting of threat-related words than ‘threat attenders’. High AS ‘threat avoiders’ also had higher levels of anxiety-related psychopathology (AS and health anxiety) than high AS ‘threat attenders’.

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In addition to “sensitizers” and “repressors”, Krohne’s conceptualization also allowed individuals to be categorized as being high (“high anxiety”) or low (“non-defensives”) on both vigilance and avoidance, respectively.

The processing of threat cues in pathological anxiety has been shown to be automatic in the sense that it occurs involuntarily, but not automatic in the sense that it is not capacity free. See McNally (1995) for a discussion on automaticity and anxiety disorders.

n = cell size.

Given that the positive and neutral word lists differed in overall word length, it is possible that differences in recognition for positive and neutral foils were secondary to differences in overall word length.

Analyses were also conducted using attention style subgroups that were categorized based on the overall median split of the IOR value for threat words for all AS groups combined (Mdn = 19.125, SD = 57.52). Overall, the results remained the same. However, low AS ‘threat attenders’ (n = 14) had a greater magnitude of the directed forgetting effect for threat words than low AS ‘threat avoiders’ (n = 8) (M = 21.38, SD = 11.72; M = 6.80, SD = 17.14, respectively; t (20) = 2.37, p < .05) which could have been due to the small number of low AS ‘threat avoiders’.

Conclusions did not differ when directional one-tailed t tests were conducted.

ANCOVA analyses revealed that the overall directed forgetting results remain the same when ASI scores, HAQ scores and gender are co-varied out.

Conclusions did not differ when non-directional two-tailed t tests were conducted.

Conclusions did not differ when directional one-tailed t tests were conducted.

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Titel: The Impact of Attention Style on Directed Forgetting Among High Anxiety Sensitive Individuals
Auteurs: Melanie Noel
Tracy L. Taylor
Chelsea K. Quinlan
Sherry H. Stewart
Publicatiedatum: 01-08-2012
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Uitgave 4/2012
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-011-9366-y

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