The Subjective Experience of PASAT Testing: Does the PASAT Induce Negative Mood?

Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 273–284, 1999 Copyright © 1999 National Academy of Neuropsychology Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0887-6177/99 $–see front matter PII S0887-6177(98)00021-3 The Subjective Experience of PASAT Testing: Does the PASAT Induce Negative Mood? University of Arkansas Sabine A. Wingenfeld University of New England The present study investigated the relationship between mood and attentional testing in 80 college students. Participants were randomly assigned to a sad, anxious, or positive mood induction procedure, or to a neutral procedure. Following mood induction, sad and anxious groups reported significantly more negative affect than the positive and neutral groups. Following completion of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT), no group differences were found. Sad and anxious groups retained their elevated negative mood states, whereas positive and neutral mood groups showed significant increases in negative mood states. These results are consistent with clinical reports that the PASAT is a stressful test. PASAT performance was essentially similar across groups, with the only significant difference found between the sad and control conditions at the 1.2-sec rate of presentation. Results raise the question to what extent participants’ subjective experience of the PASAT may interfere with their performance on the task. © 1999 National Academy of Neuropsychology. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT) has become a popular measure of attention. Developed to assess information processing and capacity in patients with head trauma (Gronwall, 1977), it has been variously described as a test of sustained attention (Cohen, 1993), divided attention (van Zomeran & Brouwer, 1994), and mental tracking (Lezak, 1995). The PASAT has been reported to be a sensitive measure of information processing ability (Gronwall, 1977; Gronwall & Wrightson, 1981), and Lezak (1995) suggested that it may be a good instrument for the assessment of subtle deficits in attentional processing. The PASAT may, however, be inappropriate for highly anxious patients, because excessive anxiety may lead to decrements in PASAT performance (Roman, Edwall, Buchanan, & Patton, 1991). Due to the demanding nature of the PASAT, several authors have also expressed concerns regarding the negative effects it An earlier version of this article was presented at the 16th annual convention of the National Academy of Neuropsychology, New Orleans, October 1996. Address correspondence to Daniel J. Holdwick, Jr., 316 Memorial Hall, Department of Psychology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701; E-mail: 273 Daniel J. Holdwick, Jr. 274 D. J. Holdwick, Jr. and S. A. Wingenfeld may have upon participants’ mood (Lezak, 1995; Spreen & Strauss, 1991). Given these concerns it appears possible that performance on the PASAT may not reflect actual deficits in attention, but rather be an artifact of a patient’s emotional reaction to the task’s demands, including emotions of anxiety, anger, and sadness. Anxiety and depression are believed to have a significant impact on a person’s general and cognitive functioning (Wells & Mathews, 1994), and the role of emotion on attention has been an area of theoretical and research interest for several decades (Ellis & Ashbrook, 1988; Eysenck, 1982; Fox, 1994; Kahneman, 1973; Mathews, May, Mogg, & Eysenck, 1990; Mogg, Mathews, & Weinman, 1989; Navon, 1984, 1985). However, applied psychological and neuropsychological models of attention have not explicitly addressed the effects of emotion or mood states on attention, specifically on attention test performance. Wells and Mathews (1994) have suggested that, in general, it can be said that negative emotional states such as anxiety and depression lead to decrements in cognitive performance relative to neutral, elated, or positive mood states. These authors suggested that the effects of anxiety and depression on attention may be understood as an interaction between task difficulty, attentional resources, strategy use, and mood. Consistent with the view that negative mood states have a general effect on attentional processing (Ellis & Ashbrook, 1988; Fox, 1994; Leight & Ellis, 1981), Wells and Mathews suggested that anxiety and depression interfere with the allocation of attentional resources to task-appropriate information in general, leading to poor attentional test performance. Research investigating the effects of mood on cognitive performance has typically employed mood induction procedures. Mood induction methods have included inciting a fear of failure, watching stressful films, musical mood induction, encounters with negative confederates, and hypnosis (Harrigan, Lucic, & Rosenthal, 1991). Another popular method was developed by Velten (1968), in which individuals read a list of words intended to induce a specific mood state, typically anxiety. However, many such mood induction protocols have been complicated and have been shown to be variable in their effectiveness (Baker & Guttfreund, 1993). Procedures intended to provoke a single mood state have often generated other affective reactions (Harrigan et al., 1991). The latter authors developed a protocol for the induction of an anxious mood state which was personally relevant to the participant, based on recall of “real life” experiences, and which was intended to involve as little experimenter intervention as possible. Results indicated that anxiety could be reliably induced using their prompted recall procedure (Harrigan et al., 1991). Brewer, Doughtie, and Lubin (1980) and Baker and Guttfreund (1993) have developed similar protocols for the induction of sad and happy mood states. Although mood induction procedures in college populations have found increases in negative mood states, the induced mood states have not typically been at clinical levels of anxiety or depression (Baker & Guttfreund, 1993; Brewer et al., 1980; Harrigan et al., 1991). These findings suggest that decrements in cognitive functioning in analogue studies may reflect weak but existing influences of mood on cognition. As these researchers have noted, mood induction procedures allow for the study of mood effects on cognitive processes in nonimpaired individuals. Analogue studies may subsequently be replicated and extended within clinical populations to determine the applicability of analogue studies in “real world,” clinical situations. In addition to concerns of the applicability of analogue research to clinical phenomena, several researchers have also expressed concern with the use of instructional and word-based mood induction procedures (Buchwald, Strack, & Coyne, 1981; Kenealy, 1986; Polivy & Doyle, 1980). Specifically, these researchers have stated that changes in mood may result from tacit demands of the induction procedures rather than reflect ac- Experience of PASAT Testing 275 METHOD (...truncated)