Anxiety disrupts performance monitoring: integrating behavioral, event-related potential, EEG microstate, and sLORETA evidence

Anxiety impacts performance monitoring, though theory and past research are split on how and for whom. However, past research has often examined either trait anxiety in isolation or task-dependent state anxiety and has indexed event-related potential components, such as the error-related negativity or post-error positivity (Pe), calculated at a single node during a limited window of time. We introduced 2 key novelties to this electroencephalography research to examine the link between anxiety and performance monitoring: (i) we manipulated antecedent, task-independent, state anxiety to better establish the causal effect; (ii) we conducted moderation analyses to determine how state and trait anxiety interact to impact performance monitoring processes. Additionally, we extended upon previous work by using a microstate analysis approach to isolate and sequence the neural networks and rapid mental processes in response to error commission. Results showed that state anxiety disrupts response accuracy in the Stroop task and error-related neural processes, primarily during a Pe-related microstate. Source localization shows that this disruption involves reduced activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and compensatory activation in the right lateral prefrontal cortex, particularly among people high in trait anxiety. We conclude that antecedent anxiety is largely disruptive to performance monitoring.