Abstract
BACKGROUND: Growing evidence suggests a relationship between deficits in cognitive control and anxiety. However, studies examining cognitive control within affective contexts (affective control) are limited, and the specific characteristics of affective control in patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) remain unclear. This study investigated whether differences exist in cognitive control under affective contexts. METHODS: We conduct our research in a population of GAD patients (n = 50) and a healthy control group (n = 50). The affective flanker task measured affective inhibition, while the affective flexibility task assessed affective shifting capabilities. RESULTS: GAD patients exhibited abnormal affective inhibition, characterized by reduced proactive control related to target stimulus processing and enhanced reactive control associated with distractor resolution. Additionally, GAD patients demonstrated deficits in affective shifting, as indicated by significantly higher shifting costs in both non-affective and affective tasks compared to the healthy control group. CONCLUSIONS: The findings reveal that GAD patients display poorer emotion recognition abilities, indicating deficits in affective control compared to healthy individuals. Our study underscores the importance of measuring affective control by delineating it into distinct components.