The literature has indicated that personal relative deprivation (PRD) results in anxiety disorders. Given that some cognitive models propose that attention bias toward a threat causes and maintains anxiety, relatively deprived individuals may have difficulty gating threat from working memory. To test this hypothesis, this study investigated the influence of PRD on the filtering ability of happy, angry, and neutral facial distractors from visual working memory using electroencephalography (EEG). Participants were randomly assigned to a PRD (n = 24) or a non-PRD group (n = 24). Filtering ability was reflected by comparing the contralateral delay activity (CDA) amplitude for one-target, one-target-one-distractor, and two-targets conditions. The CDA was measured as the difference in mean amplitudes between activity in the hemispheres contralateral and ipsilateral to the to-be-remembered information. Results indicated that individuals in the PRD group showed a reduced ability to filter out neutral and angry facial distractors, as reflected by similar CDA amplitudes for one-target-one-distractor and two-targets conditions for both angry and neutral distractors in the PRD group. However, PRD did not impair the ability to filter out happy facial distractors, as reflected by similar CDA amplitudes for one-target-one-distractor and one-target conditions for happy distractors in the PRD group. As neutral faces might then be taken as potentially threatening information by relatively deprived individuals, these results support the hypothesis that relatively deprived individuals might have difficulty filtering out threat-related information.

文献表明，个人相对剥夺（PRD）会导致焦虑症。鉴于一些认知模型提出，对威胁的注意力偏向会导致并维持焦虑，相对贫困的个体可能难以从工作记忆中控制威胁。为了验证这一假设，本研究使用脑电图 (EEG) 研究了 PRD 对来自视觉工作记忆的快乐、愤怒和中性面部干扰因素的过滤能力的影响。参与者被随机分配到一个 PRD ( n = 24) 或非 PRD 组 (n = 24)。通过比较单目标、单目标一干扰器和双目标条件下的对侧延迟活动 (CDA) 幅度来反映过滤能力。CDA 被测量为要记住的信息的对侧和同侧半球活动之间的平均振幅差异。结果表明，PRD 组中的个体过滤掉中性和愤怒的面部干扰物的能力降低，这反映在 PRD 组中愤怒和中性干扰物的单目标单干扰物和双目标条件的相似 CDA 振幅. 然而，PRD 并没有削弱过滤掉快乐面部干扰因素的能力，正如 PRD 组中一个目标一干扰因素和一个目标条件下快乐干扰因素的类似 CDA 振幅所反映的那样。