To date, there has been relatively little research on the relationship between anxiety and music. Trait anxiety (TA) is known to modulate responses to threat-related stimuli, but it is unclear whether this is driven by differences or biases related to attention, vigilance avoidance, or information processing. We evaluated competing predictions based on Attentional Control Theory (ACT), Vigilance Avoidance, and the Information Processing model. We performed two affective priming tasks with auditory primes and word targets, comparing results for participants high in TA with participants low in TA. Music primes elicited congruency effects—targets were evaluated faster when preceded by a prime that shared the same valence as the target. However, TA did not influence responses. In the second task, which used affective environmental sounds, high TA was associated with slower responses to positive targets following a negative prime, consistent with the impaired processing efficiency predicted by ACT. We discuss the results in the context of theoretical models of anxiety and suggest possible stimulus properties, such as arousal and concreteness, which could explain the differences in results.

中文翻译：

---

听觉情感启动：特质焦虑和刺激类型的作用


迄今为止，关于焦虑与音乐之间关系的研究相对较少。已知特质焦虑 （TA） 可调节对威胁相关刺激的反应，但尚不清楚这是否是由与注意力、警惕回避或信息处理相关的差异或偏差驱动的。我们评估了基于注意力控制理论 （ACT） 、警惕回避和信息处理模型的竞争预测。我们用听觉启动和单词目标执行了两项情感启动任务，比较了 TA 高和低 TA 参与者的结果。音乐素数会引发一致性效应 — 当目标前面有与目标具有相同效价的素数时，目标的评估速度会更快。然而，TA 不会影响反应。在第二项使用情感环境声音的任务中，高 TA 与负启动后对阳性目标的较慢反应相关，这与 ACT 预测的处理效率受损一致。我们在焦虑理论模型的背景下讨论结果，并提出可能的刺激特性，例如唤醒和具体性，这可以解释结果的差异。