How does anxiety affect memory?

(Photo provided by Jayden Roberts)

“Previous research has shown that as anxiety is increased, working memory performance is decreased. This project focuses on clearing up if these unique relationships exist between anxiety and memory.” ~Jayden Roberts

Ψ

*In the following article, TS refers to The Synapse, and JR refers to Jayden Roberts

TS: Could you briefly introduce yourself, your supervisor, the topic of your research, and the field it contributes to?

JR: My name is Jayden, and I am a third-year science student intending to pursue Honours in psychology with a minor in biology. Dr. Biljana Stevanovski and her graduate student Jennifer Gallan were my supervisors for Basic Research this past term, where I completed a variety of tasks including helping with data collection for Jennifer’s dissertation project on the relationship between anxiety and working memory. Dr. Stevanovski’s area of research focuses on memory and cognition.

TS: What was your research project (main research question, inspiration for project, methods, results if applicable) and your contributions? What drew you to pursuing this project?

JR: The dissertation project I helped with examines the relationship between working memory and trait anxiety by using a change detection task. Trait anxiety is defined by worry and physiological arousal that is consistent across a wide range of situations, and working memory refers to the short-term retention of information to accomplish tasks. The study aimed to measure the influence of trait anxiety on phonological and visuospatial working memory, which refer to retention of speech-based information and visual information, respectively. To test both types of working memory, participants were to participate in a “change detection task”, in which they were presented sets of either faces and words and had to indicate whether a change occurred between them.

Previous research has shown that as anxiety is increased, working memory performance is decreased. Specifically, it has been stated that worry disrupts phonological working memory because worry tends to manifest in words, while arousal disrupts visuospatial working memory because it involves the same parts of the brain as visuospatial working memory and thereby diminishes memory resources. However, it is unclear if memory disruption is indeed related to these unique aspects of anxiety or whether anxiety more generally interferes with memory. This project focuses on clearing this up.

Also, the study examines if working memory would be more disrupted when “threatening” stimuli meant to distract from the change detection task were presented during the experiment. For example, for the visual working memory tasks, some of these “distractors” included faces showing a fearful or angry expression. For the verbal tasks, some of the words were “fail”, or “harm”. Previous research has shown that these types of negative stimuli are harder to ignore for individuals with higher levels of anxiety; thus, their working memory performance should decrease when these negative distractors are presented.

The study took two hours for each participant to complete, and included computerized change detection tasks and short questionnaires about anxiety experienced during the tasks. Data collection (using 64 participants in total) was completed in December, and as far as I know, data analysis is underway!

TS: Why did you choose to take the basic research course? To what extent did the research experience align with what you’d expected?

JR: I took the Basic Research course because I am aiming to complete my Honours next year, and I was really interested in obtaining research experience. The course can be a lot of work, but I truly found that the tasks I worked on for Dr. Stevanovski – for example, reading relevant cognitive literature, writing literature summaries, and helping with data collection – were enriching and interesting! I really enjoyed my time in Basic Research and being able to develop these different skills.

TS: Is there anything else you’d like to share about your research experience?

JR: I am very grateful I was able to have the opportunity to work in such an interesting lab and experience data collection firsthand. Taking Basic Research allowed me to discover that I very much enjoy experimental psychology, and that pursuing Honours next year is something I am undoubtedly interested in and excited for. I would say if you’re not sure what to do after your degree, then taking Basic Research can give you a good indication of what a future career path could possibly look like. Research may not be for everyone, but you will certainly still learn and develop valuable skills that can guide you in your academic and personal careers! Ψ

Created for The Synapse by Incé Husain.