The Subjective Experience of Anxiety and Its Relation to Performance

There have been many attempts to explain the experience of anxiety during different types of performance situations. There are several different views on the brain mechanisms of anxiety. The traditional view has its focus on amygdala but recent research questions this view. In this essay the focus is on how two recent theories, namely the two-system model (LeDoux & Pine, 2016) and the attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos & Calvo, 2007) has changed the theoretical landscape of the brain mechanisms behind the experience of anxiety. The two-system framework model claim that the subjective experience of anxiety uses the same cortical circuits as executive functions involved in attention and working memory. Whereas the attentional control theory argues, that due to the limited attentional capacity, increasing the subjective experience of anxiety would result in less capacity for executive functions involved in working memory and attention resulting in impaired performance. This review shows that research on the relationship between the subjective experience of anxiety and performance is inconsistent and researchers possess different views on what gives rise to the experience. Some data indicate that the amygdala is crucial for the subjective experience of anxiety while other data suggest that other cortical circuits have a much more prominent role. If the cortical circuits are strongly involved in the subjective experience of anxiety, this would be strong support for the attentional control theory and the two-system framework model