Types of Anxiety and Depression: Theoretical Assumptions and Development of the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire

The present paper is addressed to (1) the validation of a recently proposed typology of anxiety and depression, and (2) the presentation of a new tool—the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire (ADQ)—based on this typology. Empirical data collected across two stages—construction and validation—allowed us to offer the final form of the ADQ, designed to measure arousal anxiety, apprehension anxiety, valence depression, anhedonic depression, and mixed types of anxiety and depression. The results support the proposed typology of anxiety and depression and provide evidence that the ADQ is a reliable and valid self-rating measure of affective types, and accordingly its use in scientific research is recommended.

What's in a line? Verbal, facial, and emotional influences on the line bisection task

In Bryden and MacRae's [(1988). Dichotic laterality effects obtained with emotional words. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology, 1(3), 171-176] dichotic listening task, attending to verbal (left hemisphere) or emotional (right hemisphere) auditory stimuli can result in opposite patterns of behaviour. We examined whether performance on the line bisection task might also be influenced in opposite ways by left- and right-lateralized functions. The line bisection task is a simple and effective measure of visuospatial bias. Pseudoneglect, a leftward bias, is typically found on this task, and appears to result from right hemisphere dominance for spatial processing. We investigated how emotion, verbal, and facial processing impacted line bisection performance, while also examining the influence of hand-use. Line type (face, word, and solid), valence (positive, negative, and neutral), and hand-use (left, right, and both) were manipulated. Results indicated that face and word lines decreased and increased the extent of pseudoneglect, respectively, and that valence accentuated these results. These results were in the opposite direction from our predictions. Hand-use had little influence. We discuss the impact that visual scanning, and local and global processing, may have had on line bisection performance. Until future research clarifies how lateralized functions affect line bisections, we suggest caution in adapting the line bisection task as a general measure of relative hemispheric activation.

Egocentric Perceptions of the Environment in Primary, but not Secondary, Psychopathy

Several theories of psychopathy link it to an egocentric mode of perceiving the world. This explanatory perspective is quite plausible given that psychopaths are viewed as callous, uncaring, and narcissistic. This explanatory perspective, though, has been an insufficient focus of research, particularly in basic cognitive tasks. Building on the work of Wapner and Werner (1957), an implicit measure of cognitive egocentrism was developed. Continuous variations in primary and secondary psychopathy were assessed in a sample of college undergraduates (N = 80). Individuals high in primary psychopathy exhibited cognitive egocentrism, whereas individuals low in primary psychopathy did not. On the other hand, variations in secondary psychopathy were non-predictive of performance in the task. Results are discussed in terms of theories of psychopathy, distinctions between its primary and secondary components, and the utility of modeling egocentrism in basic cognitive terms.

The Effects of Valence and Arousal on Hemispheric Asymmetry of Emotion

The independent influence of valence and arousal on emotional hemispheric brain asymmetry was investigated to decide between three contrasting hypotheses: the right hemisphere hypothesis, the valence hypothesis, and the integrative hypothesis. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants (N = 20) viewed positive high arousal, positive low arousal, negative high arousal, and negative low arousal pictures, following a baseline measure of ERPs while viewing gray squares. Self-ratings of emotional state in terms of valence and arousal were taken after each of the four emotion blocks. Valence and arousal effects on hemispheric asymmetry were analyzed for the time windows 130–170, 170–280, 280–450, and 450–600 ms. Right dominance on N2 during negative high arousal and left dominance on P3 and late positive potentials during negative low arousal were found over the frontal lobe. Right dominance on P2, P3, and late positive potentials over the parietal lobes appeared during high arousal. No frontal asymmetry was found in positive emotion. Our result partly supported the integrative hypothesis and did not provide evidence for the right hemisphere hypothesis or the valence hypothesis. These results suggested that arousal plays the main role in the ERPs’ hemispheric asymmetry.

Event-related potentials reveal temporal staging of dynamic facial expression and gaze shift effects on attentional orienting

Multiple sources of information from the face guide attention during social interaction. The present study modified the Posner cueing paradigm to investigate how dynamic changes in emotional expression and eye gaze in faces affect the neural processing of subsequent target stimuli. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants viewed centrally presented face displays in which gaze direction (left, direct, right) and facial expression (fearful, neutral) covaried in a fully crossed design. Gaze direction was not predictive of peripheral target location. ERP analysis revealed several sequential effects, including: (1) an early enhancement of target processing following fearful faces (P1); (2) an interaction between expression and gaze (N1), with enhanced target processing following fearful faces with rightward gaze; and (3) an interaction between gaze and target location (P3), with enhanced processing for invalidly cued left visual field targets. Behaviorally, participants responded faster to targets following fearful faces and targets presented in the right visual field, in concordance with the P1 and N1 effects, respectively. The findings indicate that two nonverbal social cues-facial expression and gaze direction-modulate attentional orienting across different temporal stages of processing. Results have implications for understanding the mental chronometry of shared attention and social referencing.

Emotional Stroop task: effect of word arousal and subject anxiety on emotional interference

Inconsistent findings regarding the emotional Stroop effect in healthy subjects may be explained by confounding effects of stimulus valence and arousal, as well as individual differences in anxiety. We examined reaction time data in a healthy sample using the emotional Stroop task while carefully matching arousal level of positive and negative words. Independent of valence, emotional relative to neutral words elicited emotional interference, indicating that arousal determines emotional interference. Independent of valence, emotional words were better re-called and recognized than neutral words. Individual differences in state anxiety were associated with emotional interference, that is, emotional interference was enhanced in subjects with high state anxiety. There was no influence of trait anxiety. These findings indicate that word arousal produces emotional interference independent of valence. State anxiety exacerbates interference of emotional words by further biasing attention towards emotionally salient stimuli.