Attentional control theory (ACT), proposed by Michael Eysenck, Nazanin Derakshan, and colleagues (2007), extends processing efficiency theory to explain how anxiety affects cognitive performance. The theory proposes that anxiety disrupts the balance between two attentional systems: the goal-directed (top-down) system and the stimulus-driven (bottom-up) system, causing anxious individuals to be more susceptible to distraction and to require greater effort to maintain task performance.
Core Propositions
ACT makes several key claims. First, anxiety increases the influence of the stimulus-driven attentional system, making anxious individuals more susceptible to attentional capture by salient stimuli, especially threat-related ones. Second, anxiety decreases the influence of the goal-directed attentional system, reducing the ability to maintain focus on task-relevant information. Third, anxiety primarily impairs processing efficiency (the relationship between performance and effort) rather than performance effectiveness (accuracy), because anxious individuals can compensate by investing additional effort.
A crucial distinction in ACT is between performance effectiveness (quality of output) and processing efficiency (output relative to effort invested). Anxiety typically has larger effects on efficiency than effectiveness — anxious individuals may maintain accuracy but require more time, more effort, or the recruitment of compensatory strategies. This is why anxiety's cognitive effects are often more apparent in response time and neural activation measures than in accuracy, and why standardized tests may underestimate anxiety's true cognitive impact.
Effects on Executive Functions
ACT specifically predicts that anxiety impairs three core executive functions: inhibition (the ability to resist interference from task-irrelevant stimuli), shifting (the ability to flexibly switch between tasks or mental sets), and updating (the ability to monitor and update working memory contents). The impairment of inhibition is considered the most central effect, directly linking anxiety's disruption of attentional control to specific cognitive mechanisms. Empirical evidence has largely supported these predictions, with meta-analyses confirming anxiety-related impairments in inhibition and shifting tasks.
Threat-Related Attentional Bias
A specific prediction of ACT — and a central finding in anxiety research more broadly — is that anxious individuals show an attentional bias toward threatening information. This has been demonstrated using dot-probe tasks, emotional Stroop tasks, and eye-tracking studies. The bias is thought to reflect the increased influence of the stimulus-driven system (which prioritizes threat detection) combined with the decreased influence of the goal-directed system (which would normally maintain focus on the current task).
Neural Basis
Consistent with ACT, neuroimaging studies show that anxiety is associated with increased amygdala activation (stimulus-driven threat processing) and decreased prefrontal cortex activation (goal-directed control). The disrupted functional connectivity between prefrontal and amygdala regions observed in anxiety disorders may represent the neural basis of the attentional control deficit proposed by ACT. Effective treatments for anxiety (both CBT and medication) tend to normalize this prefrontal-amygdala balance.
Clinical Implications
ACT has influenced the development of attention bias modification training (ABMT) — a computerized intervention that attempts to retrain attentional patterns by repeatedly directing attention away from threat stimuli. While early results were promising, subsequent research has yielded mixed findings, suggesting that modifying attentional biases is more complex than initially hoped. Nevertheless, ACT provides a valuable framework for understanding how anxiety disrupts everyday cognitive functioning.