An electrophysiological investigation into the automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious individuals

To examine the extent of automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious participants, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to emotional (fearful, happy) and neutral faces under varying task demands (low load, high load). Results showed that perceptual encoding of emotional faces, as reflected in P1 and early posterior negativity components, was unaffected by the availability of processing resources. In contrast, the postperceptual registration and storage of emotion-related information, as reflected in the late positive potential component at frontal locations, was influenced by the availability of processing resources, and this effect was further modulated by level of trait anxiety. Specifically, frontal ERP augmentations to emotional faces were eliminated in the more demanding task for low trait anxious participants, whereas ERP enhancements to emotional faces were unaffected by task load in high trait anxious participants. This result suggests greater automaticity in processing affective information in high trait anxious participants.