Trait anxiety and interference in the emotional Stroop task in young and old adults

Abstract

Studies indicate that young individuals with high trait anxiety exhibit attentional biases towards threat due to pre-existing “danger” cognitive schemata. On the other hand, findings suggest that old individuals avoid the processing of negative information due to the “positivity effect” that becomes apparent in older age. However, the effect of trait anxiety on attentional biases in older people is unclear. We used the Emotional Stroop task and the Stroop task to elucidate the role of trait anxiety in the performance of four participant groups: 11 low anxiety young; 11 high anxiety young (20–30 years); 11 low anxiety old; 11 high anxiety old (60–87 years). We found that age acted as a moderator to the relationship between trait anxiety and emotional interference in the Emotional Stroop task. We found no effect of trait anxiety in the Stroop task, which indicates that attentional biases related to anxiety are threat-specific. Our findings integrate the two bodies of research and suggest that high trait anxiety results in attentional biases towards threat in young adults only, whereas old adults with high trait anxiety do not exhibit such biases. This finding indicates the moderating role of age in the expression of threat-specific attentional biases in individuals with high trait anxiety.