The DOI matches its Crossref record; 6 of the 6 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Restriction of working memory capacity during worry.
Abstract
The authors report the first direct assessment of working memory capacity when people engage in worry. High and low worriers performed a random key-press task while thinking about a current worry or a positive personally relevant topic. High (but not low) worriers showed more evidence of restricted capacity during worry than when thinking about a positive topic. These findings suggest that high worriers have less residual working memory capacity when worrying than when thinking about other topics and, thus, have fewer attentional resources available to redirect their thoughts away from worry.
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.
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
Development and validation of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire
Meyer, T. J., Miller, M. L., Metzger, R. L., & Borkovec, T. D. (1990) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(90)90135-6 · Cited by 5,099 · cited 8×
“The PSWQ (Meyer et al., 1990) consists of 16 statements about worry (e.”
BackgroundInfluentialEricsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (1995) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.102.2.211 · Cited by 3,498
Preliminary exploration of worry: Some characteristics and processes
Borkovec, T. D., Robinson, E., Pruzinsky, T., & DePree, J. A. (1983) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(83)90121-3 · Cited by 1,468
Executive Attention, Working Memory Capacity, and a Two-Factor Theory of Cognitive Control
Engle, R. W., & Kane, M. J. (2003) · Psychology of Learning and Motivation · doi:10.1016/s0079-7421(03)44005-x · Cited by 1,104 · cited 2×
“Attentional control is related to the central executive component of working memory (Engle & Kane, 2004), so that the present findings could be interpreted as being due to worrisome thought content causing differential depletion of attentional control in high worriers.”
BackgroundMethodAnxiety and attention to threatening pictures
Yiend, J., & Mathews, A. (2001) · The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A · doi:10.1080/713755991 · Cited by 472
Self-citationA catastrophizing assessment of worrisome thoughts
Vasey, M. W., & Borkovec, T. D. (1992) · Cognitive Therapy and Research · doi:10.1007/bf01175138 · Cited by 225 · cited 3×
“Consistent with previous research (Borkovec et al., 1983; Vasey & Borkovec, 1992), high worriers reported higher levels of both anxiety and depression than did low worriers.”
BackgroundResult
Cited by
The effects of emotion on attention: A review of attentional processing of emotional information
Yiend, J. (2010) · Cognition and Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699930903205698 · Cited by 891
Anxiety and working memory capacity: A meta-analysis and narrative review.
Moran, T. P. (2016) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000051 · Cited by 776
Owens, M., Stevenson, J., Hadwin, J. A., & Norgate, R. (2012) · School Psychology International · doi:10.1177/0143034311427433 · Cited by 458
Kasper, L. J., Alderson, R. M., & Hudec, K. L. (2012) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2012.07.001 · Cited by 414
A cognitive model of pathological worry
Hirsch, C. R., & Mathews, A. (2012) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2012.06.007 · Cited by 400
“In a direct study of the latter possibility (Hayes et al., 2008) groups reporting high or low levels of worry were asked to worry, or think about a positive topic, while performing a random key-press task.”
BackgroundSelf-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Hayes, S., Hirsch, C., & Mathews, A.
- Venue
- Journal of Abnormal Psychology
- Published
- 2008-08
- Volume
- 117
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 712-717
- ISSN
- 0021-843X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1846
- OpenAlex
- W2073129346
- Cited by
- 210
- References
- 6
- FWCI
- 10.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Restriction of working memory capacity during worry. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037/a0012908
- The paper
- Hayes, S., Hirsch, C., & Mathews, A. (2008). Restriction of working memory capacity during worry. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012908
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.