Role of stimulus types and valence on the affective memory performance of adults with anxiety

Chen-Wen Fang; Wei-Ru Chen; Min-Sheng Chen; Ya-Fang Yu

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12535

Role of stimulus types and valence on the affective memory performance of adults with anxiety

Heliyon. 2022 Dec 24;8(12):e12535. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12535. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Authors

Chen-Wen Fang^{1

2}, Wei-Ru Chen³, Min-Sheng Chen⁴, Ya-Fang Yu⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
² Department of Neurology, National Taiwan University Hospital (Yunlin Branch), Yunlin, Taiwan.
³ Department of Creative Product Design, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan.

Abstract

Previous studies have found that the emotion of anxiety in adults is easily influence by negative stimuli However, few studies have explored the effect of stimulus types on working memory performance and cognitive processing of adults with anxiety. This study aimed to explore the effects of anxiety on affective working memory and the role of stimulus types and valences on affective working memory performance. Forty adults were recruited for the experiment and were divided into two groups according to their anxiety levels. The valence and type of stimulus were manipulated in a memory recognition experiment. The results indicated that individuals with anxiety performed poorer when subjected to positive stimuli than for neutral and negative stimuli, whereas healthy adults exhibited the opposite. Furthermore, participants outperformed on affective pictures than affective words, but the effect size of the words was larger than that of the pictures for the difference between the valence and anxiety groups. This study highlights the differences in affective working performance across stimulus types and valences between healthy adults and adults with anxiety. The findings clarified the effect of positive valence and affective words on the affective working memory processing mechanism in adults with anxiety.

Keywords: Affective stimulus; Anxiety; Memory; Stimulus type; Valence.