Cited by 133Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesCognitive Abilities and Testing

Failure to filter: Anxious individuals show inefficient gating of threat from working memory

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Stout, Daniel M., Shackman, Alexander J., Larson, Christine L.·2013·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

Abstract

Dispositional anxiety is a well-established risk factor for the development of psychiatric disorders along the internalizing spectrum, including anxiety and depression. Importantly, many of the maladaptive behaviors characteristic of anxiety, such as anticipatory apprehension, occur when threat is absent. This raises the possibility that anxious individuals are less efficient at gating threat's access to working memory, a limited capacity workspace where information is actively retained, manipulated, and used to flexibly guide goal-directed behavior when it is no longer present in the external environment. Using a well-validated neurophysiological index of working memory storage, we demonstrate that threat-related distracters were difficult to filter on average and that this difficulty was exaggerated among anxious individuals. These results indicate that dispositionally anxious individuals allocate excessive working memory storage to threat, even when it is irrelevant to the task at hand. More broadly, these results provide a novel framework for understanding the maladaptive thoughts and actions characteristic of internalizing disorders.

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Crossref · 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00058

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Authors
Stout, D. M., Shackman, A. J., & Larson, C. L.
Affiliations
  • University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (US)
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
Corresponding author
Larson, Christine L.
Venue
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Published
2013
Volume
7
Pages
58-58
ISSN
1662-5161 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2152434976
Cited by
133
References
96
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 6
FWCI
17.16
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UWM Digital Commons (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee) (submittedVersion)
  • Minds at UW (University of Wisconsin) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
  • University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
  • National Institute of Mental Health (K01MH086809)
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
dispositional anxiety, working memory, threat processing, internalizing disorders, anticipatory anxiety

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