The DOI matches its Crossref record; 73 of the 73 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Attentional control deficits in trait anxiety: Why you see them and why you don't
Abstract
Attentional Control Theory (ACT; Eysenck et al., 2007; Derakshan and Eysenck, 2009) posits that trait anxiety interferes with the inhibition, shifting and updating processes of working memory. Consequently, high anxious individuals are predicted to perform worse on cognitively demanding tasks requiring efficient cognitive processing. Whilst a growing number of studies have provided support for this view, the possible underlying mechanisms of this deficiency are far less understood. In particular, there is conflicting neuroscientific evidence with some work showing associations between anxiety and increased neural activity over frontal areas, while others report reduced activity. We review recent evidence that has helped elucidate the cognitive hallmarks of trait anxiety, and suggest how previous discrepancies can be accommodated within ACT's prediction that reduced cognitive efficiency may be ameliorated by strategies such as compensatory effort. Finally, we discuss if ACT's distinction on efficiency and effectiveness can be applied to threat-related processing, often shown to additively override attentional control in anxiety.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Although findings are mixed, other research suggests that anxiety impairs cognitive flexibility (e.g., indexed by task-switching) and working memory functions, which may be modulated by task demands or presence of threat (Berggren & Derakshan, 2013;Snyder et al., 2015;Stout et al., 2013;2015).”
From Anxiety and attention to threat: cognitive mechanisms and treatment with attention bias modification (2016) · cites this paper as Berggren & Derakshan, 2013
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain
Corbetta, M., & Shulman, G. L. (2002) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn755 · Cited by 12,881
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974) · Psychology of Learning and Motivation · doi:10.1016/s0079-7421(08)60452-1 · Cited by 9,860
Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention
Desimone, R., & Duncan, J. (1995) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev.ne.18.030195.001205 · Cited by 8,388
Conflict monitoring and cognitive control
Botvinick, M. M., Braver, T. S., Barch, D. M., Carter, C. S., & Cohen, J. D. (2001) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.108.3.624 · Cited by 7,351
Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory
Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336 · Cited by 5,289
Self-citationVisual search and stimulus similarity.
Duncan, J. S., & Humphreys, G. (1989) · Psychology Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.96.3.433 · Cited by 3,919
Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: a meta-analytic study.
Bar-Haim, Y., Lamy, D., Pergamin, L., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2007) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.1 · Cited by 3,721
The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and its correlates.
Broadbent, D., Cooper, P. F., Fitzgerald, P. H., & Parkes, K. (1982) · British Journal of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8260.1982.tb01421.x · Cited by 2,967
Anxiety and Performance: The Processing Efficiency Theory
Eysenck, M. W., & Calvo, M. G. (1992) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699939208409696 · Cited by 2,661
Cognitive Psychology and Emotional Disorders
Williams, J. M. G. (1988) · UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) · Cited by 1,871
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Eye tracking of attention in the affective disorders: a meta-analytic review and synthesis
Armstrong, T., & Olatunji, B. O. (2012) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.004 · Cited by 1,049
Mathematics anxiety: what have we learned in 60 years?
Dowker, A., Sarkar, A., & Looi, C. Y. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00508 · Cited by 811
Anxiety and working memory capacity: A meta-analysis and narrative review.
Moran, T. P. (2016) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000051 · Cited by 776
On the relationship between anxiety and error monitoring: a meta-analysis and conceptual framework
Moser, J. S., Moran, T. P., Schroder, H. S., Donnellan, M. B., & Yeung, N. (2013) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00466 · Cited by 445
Okon-Singer, H., Hendler, T., Pessoa, L., & Shackman, A. J. (2015) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2015.00058 · Cited by 371
Metadata
- Authors
- Berggren, N., & Derakshan, N.
- Affiliations
- Birkbeck, University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Derakshan, Nazanin
- ORCID
- Berggren, Nick
- Venue
- Biological Psychology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-03
- Volume
- 92
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 440-446
- ISSN
- 0301-0511 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2079769200
- Cited by
- 403
- References
- 73
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 68 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 12
- FWCI
- 2.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Biological Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (1013785)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- trait anxiety, attentional control theory, working memory, cognitive inhibition, cognitive flexibility, cognitive efficiency, compensatory effort, threat processing, cognitive control deficits
- MeSH terms
- Anxiety, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Humans, Inhibition, Psychological, Motivation
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
