Abstract: In the interpretation of involuntary intrusive anxiety, psychologists tended to emphasize the importance of unconscious stimulation. Unconscious processing of threat is a type of automatic processing that is especially relevant to the core symptoms of pathological anxiety and may contribute to the experience of what is perceived as free-floating anxiety in generalised anxiety disorder (Mathews & Mackintosh, 1998). But social phobia, panic and obsessive-compulsive disorder are related to consciousness processing of threat, which are called intrusive thoughts (Li & Zinbarg, 2007). The association between conscious and unconscious threat processing remains unclear. Using subliminal affective priming paradigm, we studied the threat information subliminal priming effect and the moderating role of trait anxiety on it. 38 participants took part in the experiment. In the emotional Stroop task and awareness check, Chinese word sets (including dangerous words and neutral words ) were presented subliminally and supraliminally while the baseline did not present words so corresponding stems could be used to assess baseline completion. Subliminal, supraliminal, and baseline trials were presented in a random order. Each trial began with a word and/ or a mask using the same timing, word lists, colours, and font parameters as in the emotional Stroop task. Following the question (‘‘What’s the word?’’), participants either attempted to report the word or said ‘‘no’’. If a participant ever correctly reported a word in the subliminal condition (as happened for seven subjects), data from all trials were excluded. In the words completion participants were instructed to complete the stem to the first word to come to mind using the Chinese character presented while excluding any word just seen. Given the possibility that the stem led to conscious awareness of the word, the instruction to exclude the word when producing a completion provided a further safeguard against contamination by conscious perception of a word. We hypothesized subliminal word perception could elicit unconscious processing and result in an increased likelihood of using that word in the stem-completion task and there was interaction between trait anxiety and word valence on priming. The results were: (1) The hit rate of the target word in the subliminal trials was significantly higher than the baseline condition; (2) For the high TA group, the priming effect of dangerous words was significantly higher than that of neutral words, while for the low TA group, the priming effect of neutral words was significantly higher than that of dangerous words. We concluded that subliminal priming effect was significant and the unconscious processing of threat information of high TA group enhanced the conscious processing of the threat information leading to the involuntary intrusive anxiety. The findings support the notion that unconscious processing of threat among highly anxious individuals tends to break through into consciousness. A scenario whereby unconscious threat processing among highly anxious individuals leads directly to intrusive anxious thoughts may constitute an important mechanism responsible for the development and maintenance of anxiety.

Key words: involuntary intrusive anxiety, subliminal priming effect, trait anxiety

摘要： 本研究采用阈下情感启动范式, 研究威胁信息启动效应及其特质焦虑的调节作用，旨在揭示焦虑非自主闯入性特点形成的机制。实验在随机的三种条件下（阈上/阈下/基线）给38名被试呈现两种目标词（威胁词和中性词），其中基线条件不呈现目标词；之后要求被试在回避目标词的条件下完成组词任务，结果：（1）无论是中性词还是威胁词，被试阈下条件下目标词的击中率显著高于基线条件；（2）特质焦虑对阈下启动效应起着调节作用：高焦虑组被试威胁词的启动效应显著高于中性词，低焦虑组被试中性词的启动效应显著高于威胁词。结论：阈下启动效应显著，高特质焦虑组个体对威胁信息的无意识加工会增强对威胁信息的意识加工，产生闯入性想法，导致焦虑非自主闯入性的特点。

关键词: 非自主闯入焦虑, 阈下启动效应, 特质焦虑