Item Details

abstract

The goal of the current study was to investigate the relationship between trait worry, trait anxiety, and visual working memory (WM) updating accuracy. Participants completed questionnaires assessing trait anxiety and worry. Participants completed a WM updating task, during which they were presented with an array of shapes. Each shape was occluded by a square and participants were required to monitor the successive swapping of WM item pairs. Participants were then probed with one square and were asked to indicate the shape that would be in that location. We expected a decline in accuracy on the task as set size and the number of swaps increased. We also predicted that trait worry, but not trait anxiety, would be associated with updating accuracy deficits as set size and number of swaps increased. We found that WM updating accuracy declined as set size increased. We also found that updating accuracy declined as the number of swaps increased. We found no effect of trait worry or trait anxiety on updating accuracy. In line with prior research, our results suggest that individuals with high trait anxiety and high trait worry do not experience impairment in updating accuracy.

subject

Anxiety

Updating

Working Memory

Worry

contributor

Gill, Vanessa (author)

Sali, Anthony W (committee chair)

Blumenthal, Terry D (committee member)

Friedman, Jacqueline (committee member)

Jennings, Janine M (committee member)

date

2021-09-01T08:35:27Z (accessioned)

2021-09-01T08:35:27Z (available)

2021 (issued)

degree

Psychology (discipline)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/99064 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

title

Trait Anxiety and Trait Worry are not Associated with Visual Working Memory Updating Effectiveness

type

Thesis