Out of fright, out of mind: impaired memory for information negated during looming threat.

ABSTRACT: People often need to update representations of information upon discovering them to be incorrect, a process that can be interrupted by competing cognitive demands. Because anxiety and stress can impair cognitive performance, we tested whether looming threat can similarly interfere with the process of updating representations of a statement's truthfulness. On each trial, participants saw a face paired with a personality descriptor. Each pairing was followed by a signal indicating whether the pairing was "true", or "false" (a negation of the truth of the statement), and this signal could be followed by a warning of imminent electric shock (i.e., the looming threat). As predicted, threat of shock left memory for "true" pairings intact, while impairing people's ability to label negated pairing

SUBMITTER: Newman VE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8102851 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature