Electrophysiological, pupillary, oculomotor correlates of inhibitory control and cognitive effort in anxiety

Abstract

Neurocognitive models of anxiety highlight the importance of attentional control and prefrontal control mechanisms and posit that anxiety is characterised by impaired effectiveness and efficiency during inhibition, especially under high cognitive load and in the presence of threat-related stimuli (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007). The current thesis utilised behavioural, oculomotor, pupillary, and neurophysiological measures to examine the inefficient/ineffective inhibitory control and increased cognitive effort in high (vs. low) anxious individuals in the presence and absence of threat under high and low cognitive load conditions. Across three experiments, the results demonstrated that, high (vs. low) trait anxious individuals exert increased effort (as evidenced by increased pupillary responses) and invest more attentional resources during response preparation (as evidenced by decreased negative frontal neurophysiological responses), yet they have impaired inhibitory control (as evidenced by slower and erroneous oculomotor responses and less negative inhibition-related neurophysiological responses), especially under high cognitive load. These findings indicate inefficient inhibitory processing and ineffective inhibitory performance in high trait anxious individuals, especially when the task demands are high.

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ORCID for Matthew Garner: orcid.org/0000-0001-9481-2226

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