Neutral and threatening distracter word stimuli are unnecessarily stored in working memory but do not differ in their degree of working memory storage.
Biol Psychol
; 162: 108091, 2021 05.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33864873
ABSTRACT
Evidence suggests that threatening stimuli induce attentional biases compared to neutral stimuli, leading to subsequent storage in working memory. The current study examined how threatening versus neutral word distracters influence attention, and how this affects the unnecessary storage of these task-irrelevant stimuli in working memory. We measured the N2pc and contralateral delay activity (CDA), two event-related potentials (ERPs) that index attentional selection and the number of items maintained in WM, respectively, as participants completed a lateralized change detection task using word stimuli. Our results replicated work demonstrating a CDA effect for word stimuli, and found that distracter words are unnecessarily stored in working memory. However, we observed non-significant differences in attentional bias and working memory storage between distracter word conditions, and individual variation in anxiety was not associated with these processes. Bayes Factor analyses supported these null effects, suggesting that differences between neutral and threatening distracter words are unlikely.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Viés de Atenção
/
Memória de Curto Prazo
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Biol Psychol
Ano de publicação:
2021
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos