Semantic and prosodic threat processing in trait anxiety: is repetitive thinking influencing responses?. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Busch-Moreno, Simon; Tuomainen, Jyrki; Vinson, David
• Is Part Of: Cognition and emotion. Volume 35:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 50
• Page End: 70
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Anxiety -- speech -- prosody -- semantics; Cognition -- Periodicals; Emotions and cognition -- Periodicals; 155.413
• DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1804329
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0269-9931

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The present study attempts to identify how trait anxiety, measured as worry-level, affects the processing of threatening speech. Two experiments using dichotic listening tasks were implemented; where participants had to identify sentences that convey threat through three different information channels: prosody-only, semantic-only and both semantic and prosody (congruent threat). We expected different ear advantages (left or right) depending on task demands, information type, and worry level. We used a full Bayesian approach for statistical modelling and analysis. Main results indicate that as worry-level increases, participants' reaction times increase. We explain this effect by proposing a fourth stage, associated with goal-oriented deliberation, for a three-phasic multistep model of emotional language processing. Higher levels of trait anxiety could induce verbal repetitive thinking (i.e. worry and/or rumination), which might prolong the mentioned deliberation stages, thus slowing down responses.