ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

Acta Psychologica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (12): 1455-1466.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2022.01455

• Reports of Empirical Studies • Previous Articles     Next Articles

How state anxiety influences retrospective time duration judgment: Moderated mediating effect of cognitive appraisal and memory bias

LIU Jingyuan1, LI Hong2   

  1. 1Center for Psychological Development, Tsinghua University
    2Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • Published:2022-12-20 Online:2022-09-23

Abstract:

People are influenced by their emotional state and confused by environmental stimuli in anxiety, which leads to the deviation of time duration judgment. In this article, three experiments were conducted to explore the influence of state anxiety on retrospective time duration judgment, and the moderated mediating effect of cognitive appraisal and memory bias.
Experiment 1 investigated the effect of state anxiety on retrospective time duration judgment. Sixty college students participated and were randomly assigned to a high state anxiety group (n = 30, completed a procedure of anxious state induction) and a low state anxiety group (n = 30, completed a procedure of calm state induction). Then, the verbal estimation task was used to measure the retrospective time duration judgment. Experiment 2 investigated the mediating role of memory bias in the effect of state anxiety on retrospective time duration judgment through measuring memory by the free recall task. Experiment 3 investigated the moderated mediating effect of cognitive appraisal and memory bias through measuring cognitive appraisal by the visual analogue mood scales.
The results can be found below. (1) State anxiety had an effect on retrospective time duration judgment, namely, the high state anxiety individuals overestimate the duration than the low state anxiety individuals (Mhigh = 0.91, SDhigh = 0.32; Mlow = 0.72, SDlow = 0.28, t(57) = 2.43, p = 0.018, d = 0.63). (2) Memory bias played a mediating role in the relationship between state anxiety and retrospective time duration judgment (see Figure 1). (3) Cognitive appraisal moderated the mediation effect of memory bias on the influence of state anxiety on retrospective time duration judgment (coeff = 0.026, SE = 0.013, p = 0.049, 95% CI = [0.0001, 0.052], see Figure 2). Specifically, when the score of cognitive appraisal was low (M - 1 SD = 65.27), memory bias played a mediating role in the influence of state anxiety on retrospective time duration judgment (Effect = 0.042, SE = 0.032, 95% CI = [0.002, 0.131]), while when the score of cognitive appraisal was high (M + 1 SD = 93.62), memory bias did not play a mediating role in the influence of state anxiety on retrospective time duration judgment (Effect = −0.033, SE = 0.025, 95% CI = [−0.093, 0.003]).
Therefore, the effect of state anxiety on college students’ retrospective time duration judgment was a moderated mediating effect. The results reveal the internal process of the retrospective time duration judgment of anxious individuals, which can verify the attention gate model and enrich the explanatory perspective of anxiety influencing the retrospective time duration judgment through memory bias, and provide an important reference for improving the time deviation of anxious individuals through the adjustment of cognitive appraisal.

Key words: state anxiety, retrospective time duration judgment, memory bias, cognitive appraisal