Neural correlates of trait anxiety in sensory processing and distractor filtering

Abstract

Evidence suggests that trait anxiety relates to cognitive processing and behavior. However, the relationships between trait anxiety and sensory processing, goal-directed performance and sensorimotor function are unclear, particularly in a multimodal context. This study used electroencephalography to evaluate whether trait anxiety influenced visual and tactile event-related potentials (ERPs), as well as behavioral distractor cost, in a bimodal sensorimotor task. Twenty-nine healthy young adults completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Participants were directed to focus on either tactile or visual stimuli while disregarding the other modality, responding to target stimulus amplitude with a proportional grip. Previous research suggests that somatosensory N70 and visual P2 ERPs serve as markers of attentional relevance, with attention also impacting the visual P3 ERP. It was hypothesized that trait anxiety would modulate the ERPs susceptible to attentional modulation (tactile N70, visual P2 and P3) and not affect behavioral performance. Trait anxiety showed a large, significant interaction with attention for visual P3 latency in response to unimodal visual stimuli, with a positive relationship between P3 latencies and trait anxiety when attending toward the stimulus and negative when attending away. A large, positive main effect of trait anxiety on visual N1 amplitude for bimodal stimuli was also detected. As predicted, trait anxiety related to ERPs but not behavioral distractor cost. These findings suggest that trait anxiety modulates visual but not somatosensory processing correlates based on attention. The absence of overt behavioral performance effects suggests compensatory mechanisms may offset underlying differences in sensory processing.

Keywords: attention; distractor filtering; electroencephalography; event‐related potentials; inhibition; sensory gating; sensory processing; somatosensory; trait anxiety; visual.

FIGURE 1

Experimental paradigm. (a) Setup (Adams et al., 2019, 2020). (b) Stimulus types: unimodal tactile, unimodal visual, or bimodal tactile and visual (simultaneous). Tactile stimuli were vibrations of varying intensities to the left index finger from the vibrotactile device. Visual stimuli were orange horizontal bars of varying elevations. (c) Study block types and conditions (12 total, 6 per attentional instruction). “Attend tactile” condition: participants responded to unimodal tactile trials, ignored unimodal visual stimuli, and responded only to tactile while ignoring visual components in bimodal trials. “Attend visual” condition: the opposite was to be performed. Distractor stimulus components are followed by the letter “d” for distractors (e.g., Td, tactile distractor). V: attend visual, unimodal; Td: ignore tactile, unimodal; VTd: attend visual + ignore tactile, bimodal; T: attend tactile, unimodal; Vd: ignore visual, unimodal; TVd: attend tactile + ignore visual, bimodal.

FIGURE 2

Grand averaged ERP waveforms. The x‐axis represents time (ms) relative to stimulus onset. The y‐axis represents voltage baseline corrected to the pre‐stimulus period (μV). Tactile ERPs: (a) P50 and N70 tactile ERPs at electrode CP4. (b) P100 and N140 tactile ERPs at electrode CZ. Visual ERPs: (c) visual ERPs at electrode PZ.

FIGURE 3

Visual P3 amplitude and latency results from electrode Pz. (a) LMM analysis found a trait anxiety and attention interaction of visual P3 ERP latencies in response to unimodal visual stimuli. (b) P3 amplitudes for each visual condition. A significant main effect of attention on P3 amplitude in response to bimodal stimuli was detected. (c) P3 latencies for each visual condition.

FIGURE 4

No significant relationship was found between trait anxiety and sensory modality on distractor cost.