{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02987249544626594, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01639344262295082, 'mean_word_length': 5.386046511627907, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Anxiety, Stress, and Contingent Negative Variation Reconsidered

The relationships among anxiety, stress and the contingent negative variation (CNV) have usually been studied in subjects selected by means of self-report scales. These scales provide for a measure of anxiety as a “generalized” disposition to show anxiety responses in various kinds of stressful situations. The specific type of stressor, however, has received little attention, although recent developments in the area of anxiety research point out its crucial importance. It has reliably been demonstrated that high trait anxiety subjects report greater increases in state anxiety than low anxiety subjects, primarily in situations that pose some threat to self-esteem (ego-involving situations). In situations characterized by the anticipation of physical danger (painthreat), on the other hand, high and low trait anxiety subjects usually do not report differential increases in state anxiety (Spielberger, 1972). The effects of trait anxiety on complex human learning performance, again, are qualified by the stress situation: decrements of high anxiety subjects are mainly observed in ego-involving situations and decrements of low anxiety subjects are especially found in physical danger situations (Saltz, 1970). In studies on the relationship between trait anxiety and CNV, stress typically was conceived as physical harm. In a series of such experiments (Knott and Irwin, 1967, 1968, 1973; Knott e f al., 1973; Van Veen, et al. 1973) mild or painful shocks were employed as imperative stimuli in a constant foreperiod reaction time task. One major finding was a larger CNV in low anxiety subjects when the imperative stimulus was an electrical shock of high intensity; CNV in high anxiety subjects, in contrast, was reduced. This result was interpreted (Knott and Irwin, 1967) as indicating that high anxiety persons operate under stress from a higher baseline cortical negativity than low anxiety persons, leaving little room for additional negativity to be superimposed. Therefore high anxiety subjects paradoxically show reduced CNVs under high stress (“ceiling hypothesis”). An alternative interpretation was offered by Tecce (197 1, 1972). In his view, high anxiety persons are more distracted by worry and preoccupation with task-irrelevant, self-focused thoughts when painful shocks can be anticipated as S2. Both interpretations are based on the assumption that anticipation of physical harm leads to greater anxiety arousal and/or distraction in high anxiety as compared to low anxiety persons. Another finding by Knott et al. (1973) has obviously been overlooked. When the imperative stimulus is a weak, just-suprathreshold shock, high anxiety subjects display