Abstract
There is inconsistent evidence for memory biases in anxiety disorders, perhaps because memory biases require activation of the relevant fear schema to be observable. Cognitive theories predict this will occur when exposure to the feared stimulus is combined with semantic and affective activation. The current study examined the impact of priming (having a live spider present) on explicit memory among individuals who were low (N = 53) or high (N = 51) in spider fear. As predicted, only participants who were both high in spider fear and primed (spider present) exhibited preferential recall of spider words (but not of other words). Findings are discussed in terms of how priming may enhance the expression of information processing biases among vulnerable individuals.
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Notes
Word stimuli across the three categories were not matched on frequency or valence, which does limit our ability to rule out differences in memory based strictly on distinctiveness or affective characteristics of the stimuli. However, it is unlikely that these potential differences would explain the main finding of enhanced recall for spider-specific words in the high fear + spider present group when compared to the other three groups.
To ensure an equal number of participants across groups, it became necessary to preferentially assign participants toward the end of data collection. As a result, the experimenter was not blind to approximately six participants’ fear levels.
When these relationships are examined separately for the low and high spider fear groups, the magnitude of the relationships remains nearly identical for the expected correlation between number of spider words recalled and FSQ (r = .27, P = .06) and SPQ scores (r = .25, P = .08) in the high fear group. The relationships are slightly smaller in the low fear group between number of spider words recalled and FSQ (r = .10, P > .10) and SPQ scores (r = .17, P > .10).
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful for the research assistance provided by members of the Teachman Program for Anxiety, Cognition and Treatment lab, including Dina Eliezer and Rita Michelle Ware.
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Smith-Janik, S.B., Teachman, B.A. Impact of Priming on Explicit Memory in Spider Fear. Cogn Ther Res 32, 291–302 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-007-9122-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-007-9122-5