State anxiety and emotional face recognition in healthy volunteers

High trait anxiety has been associated with detriments in emotional face processing. By contrast, relatively little is known about the effects of state anxiety on emotional face processing. We investigated the effects of state anxiety on recognition of emotional expressions (anger, sadness, surprise, disgust, fear and happiness) experimentally, using the 7.5% carbon dioxide (CO2) model to induce state anxiety, and in a large observational study. The experimental studies indicated reduced global (rather than emotion-specific) emotion recognition accuracy and increased interpretation bias (a tendency to perceive anger over happiness) when state anxiety was heightened. The observational study confirmed that higher state anxiety is associated with poorer emotion recognition, and indicated that negative effects of trait anxiety are negated when controlling for state anxiety, suggesting a mediating effect of state anxiety. These findings may have implications for anxiety disorders, which are characterized by increased frequency, intensity or duration of state anxious episodes

State anxiety and emotional face recognition in healthy volunteers (study one - discovery)

Experimental study (n = 21) investigating effects of state anxiety on emotional face processing. Participants attended one session and completed two inhalations: one of 7.5% carbon dioxide-enriched air (state anxiety condition) and one of medical air (placebo condition). During each inhalation participants completed a six-alternate forced choice task measuring recognition accuracy and sensitivity of six emotional expressions and a two alternate forced choice task measuring interpretation bias of composite emotional expressions (i.e., morphs of anger and happiness). Participants in this study were consented under procedures that did not include consent for data to be made open

State anxiety and emotional face recognition in healthy volunteers (study one - discovery)

Experimental study (n = 21) investigating effects of state anxiety on emotional face processing. Participants attended one session and completed two inhalations: one of 7.5% carbon dioxide-enriched air (state anxiety condition) and one of medical air (placebo condition). During each inhalation participants completed a six-alternate forced choice task measuring recognition accuracy and sensitivity of six emotional expressions and a two alternate forced choice task measuring interpretation bias of composite emotional expressions (i.e., morphs of anger and happiness). Participants in this study were consented under procedures that did not include consent for data to be made open

Supplementary Table S1 from State anxiety and emotional face recognition in healthy volunteers

Post-hoc paired-sample t-test results of hit data from studies one and tw