{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,18]],"date-time":"2026-08-18T04:28:04Z","timestamp":1787027284529,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,22]],"date-time":"2022-03-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1647907200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychiatry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Recent studies suggest that individual difference in intra-individual variability (IIV) of reaction times is an important indicator of attentional executive control. However, there are few existing studies on the executive control of high trait-anxious individuals assessed by using reaction time variability. This study assessed whether executive functions are impaired among clinical and non-clinical trait-anxious individuals indicated by IIV. The cross-reliability and discriminative power of three IIV parameters (raw intra-individual standard deviation, SD; reaction time coefficient of variation, RTCV; and mean absolute deviation, MAD) were compared. Twenty-five non-clinical individuals with low trait anxiety (LTA), 31 non-clinical individuals with high trait anxiety (HTA), and 19 clinical patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) finished self-reported measures, an emotional spatial-cuing task, and a non-emotional arrow flanker task. In the emotional task, GAD patients had significantly slower response speed, lower accuracy, and greater IIV parameters than the LTA and HTA groups. In the non-emotional task, the GAD group exhibited poorer processing efficiency, greater SD and RTCV, and intact performance effectiveness. RTCV is suggested to be a better marker of executive dysfunction than SD and MAD due to its good discriminative power and reliability as well as less affected by reaction times.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyt.2022.532778","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,27]],"date-time":"2022-03-27T12:58:47Z","timestamp":1648385927000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Increased Intra-Individual Variability as a Marker of Executive Dysfunction in Generalized Anxiety Disorder"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Yongju","family":"Yu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Haiyan","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yuanyuan","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fang","family":"Lu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Min","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"125","DOI":"10.1080\/09297040500499081","article-title":"Reaction time distribution analysis of neuropsychological performance in an ADHD sample","volume":"12","author":"Hervey","year":"2006","journal-title":"Child Neuropsychol"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"22","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuropsychologia.2015.03.015","article-title":"Left anterior cingulate activity predicts intra-individual reaction time variability in healthy adults","volume":"72","author":"Johnson","year":"2015","journal-title":"Neuropsychologia"},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"971","DOI":"10.1038\/nn1727","article-title":"The neural bases of momentary lapses in attention","volume":"9","author":"Weissman","year":"2006","journal-title":"Nat Neurosci"},{"key":"B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"117","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tics.2006.01.011","article-title":"Characterizing cognition in ADHD: beyond executive dysfunction","volume":"10","author":"Castellanos","year":"2006","journal-title":"Trends Cogn Sci"},{"key":"B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"307","DOI":"10.1080\/02699931.2010.494387","article-title":"Cognitive-emotional dysfunction among noisy minds: Predictions from individual differences in reaction time variability","volume":"25","author":"Ode","year":"2011","journal-title":"Cogn Emot"},{"key":"B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijpsycho.2020.08.001","article-title":"Intraindividual reaction time variability, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and children's externalizing problems","volume":"157","author":"Zhang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Int J Psychophysiol."},{"key":"B7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"3033","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuropsychologia.2013.10.008","article-title":"Increased response variability as a marker of executive dysfunction in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder","volume":"51","author":"Swick","year":"2013","journal-title":"Neuropsychologia."},{"key":"B8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1088","DOI":"10.1016\/j.biopsych.2006.04.003","article-title":"Intra-subject variability in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder","volume":"60","author":"Klein","year":"2006","journal-title":"Biol Psychiatry"},{"key":"B9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"148","DOI":"10.1016\/j.paid.2011.03.034","article-title":"On the stability of instability: optimising the reliability of intra-subject variability of reaction times","volume":"51","author":"Saville","year":"2011","journal-title":"Pers Indiv Differ"},{"key":"B10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"275","DOI":"10.1016\/j.biopsycho.2012.07.006","article-title":"Is reaction time variability consistent across sensory modalities? 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