ABSTRACT
Research into the interaction between emotional states and emotional information has produced some robust fi ndings. It is now well established that high-anxiety individuals exhibit cognitive biases that differ from low-anxiety individuals (for reviews, see Dalgleish & Power, 1999; Eysenck, 1997; Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1997). For example, at an encoding level, anxious individuals often favor the processing of anxiety-related information, and this may occur at a preattentive level (e.g., Öhman, 1996). Investigations into possible memory differences between anxious and nonanxious individuals have produced a more varied pattern of fi ndings, with Williams et al. (1997) arguing for perceptually based implicit memory effects in anxiety, and Eysenck (1992) proposing that explicit memory biases are found. As yet, there is no consensus of opinion or data to provide a comprehensive picture of memory effects associated with anxiety.
