How do worry and clinical status impact working memory performance? An experimental investigation
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
How do worry and clinical status impact working memory performance? An experimental investigation Judith Held1*, Andreea Vîslă1, Richard E. Zinbarg2, Christine Wolfer1 and Christoph Flückiger1
Abstract Background: Previous research has suggested that worry is negatively associated with working memory performance. However, it is unclear whether these findings would replicate across different worry levels and in individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders (i.e. clinical statuses). Method: One-hundred-thirty-eight participants performed a two-block working memory task (150 trials per block). Based on participants` current clinical status, four groups were considered (generalised anxiety disorder group: n = 36; clinical group with another anxiety or mood disorders: n = 33; subclinical group: n = 27; control group: n = 42). Trait worry levels were collected from all of the participants. Working memory performance was measured as accuracy and reaction time. Results: During the first block, higher worry scores were significantly associated with longer reaction times. Moreover, the generalised anxiety disorder group, clinical group, and subclinical groups demonstrated significantly longer reaction times compared to the control group in Block 1, when age was controlled for. From Block 1 to Block 2, all of the participants demonstrated a significant decrease in accuracy and reaction time, regardless of worry level or clinical status. Conclusion: The results indicate that higher worry levels negatively impact WM processing efficiency. Moreover, when age was controlled for, we found participants` clinical status to be linked with WM impairments. The results highlight the relevance of investigating the impact of different worry levels on cognitive processes across clinical and non-clinical populations. Keywords: Worry, Working memory, Anxiety disorders, Generalized anxiety disorder, Cognitive performance
Background Worry is commonly experienced by a vast majority of people, including healthy children and adults of all age groups, as well as those suffering from anxiety and mood disorders [1]. In its extreme form, pathological worry has been described as a chain of thoughts that is laden with negative affect and perceived as relatively uncontrollable [2]. Although pathological worry is one of the cardinal features of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Psychology, Psychological Interventions and Psychotherapy, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
[3];), it has also been found to be involved in other anxiety and mood disorders [1, 4]. Moreover, the high comorbidity rates among anxiety and depressive disorders point to shared underlying cognitive, emotional and behavioural processes across specific disorders [5]. In line with this, the Research Domain Criteria era (RDoC [6, 7];) proposed worry to be a transdiagnostic process that cuts across the traditional diagnosti
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