Table 1.

Empirical studies (author, sample, measures, results).

Authors	Sample	Measures	Results
Aasvik et al. (2015) [23]	167	EMQ-R, SF-8, HADS, CFQ, ISI	Significant levels of fatigue and anxiety were reported while depression, insomnia, and intensity of pain levels were not significant Subjective memory complaints may reflect concerns about one’s own memory performance, so they are expressions of anxiety, becoming anxious when asked to remember something Anxiety consumes attention
Balderston et al. (2017) [26]	69	BAI, STAI, BDI, WASI	Anxiety patients have slower reaction times, difficulty recruiting some regions in cognitive tasks, intrusive thoughts and low control over them, low emotion regulation, and continuous threat-related thoughts during tasks, and they must work to face fearful stimuli
Fitzgerald et al. (2017) [27]	69	ERT	Trait anxiety patients have dIPFC-mediated cognitive control abnormalities WM deficiencies may predict future illness severity or treatment outcomes
Fonzo et al. (2014) [28]	32	PSWQ, 10 sessions of weekly CBT, Emotion Face Assessment Task	The results support a dual-process psychotherapy model of neural system modifications in generalized anxiety disorder that attenuates cingulo-amygdala responsiveness to threat signals and potentiates insular responses to pleasant facial emotions
Gordeev et al. (2013) [10]	95	Clinical–neurological, neuropsychological methods	Generalized anxiety disorder patients had more anxiety, depression, and short-term memory and directed attention disorders than panic disorder patients In panic patients, P300 amplitudes were higher
Hallion et al. (2017) [11]	56	MINI, CSR, CGI, SIGH-A, PSWQ, SIGH-D	Generalized anxiety predicts impaired “cool” and cognitive inhibition but not worry Anxiety affects cognitive efficiency by requiring more effort (reflected in part by slower response times) to maintain accuracy (reflected in task accuracy), which is partly due to worry competing for attentional resources
Khdour et al. (2016) [12]	73	NAART, WAIS-R, Digit Span test, HAM-A	Negative feedback helped generalized anxiety patients. Cognitive dissociation between anxiety spectrum disorder subtypes may explain differences in neural circuitry People with generalized anxiety learn better from negative feedback but not because of group differences in learning speed or ability to explore outcomes
Leonard and Abramovitch (2018) [1]	1563	MINI, PSWQ, DASS-21, STAI, NeuroTrax Computerized Neuropsychological Battery	No significant differences were found for any neuropsychological outcome measures or domain indexes
Moon et al. (2015) [13]	36	HAMD 17, GAD-7, STAI-I, STAIII, ASI-R	Generalized anxiety disorder patients performed significantly worse on all questionnaires than healthy controls Generalized anxiety patients reacted to anxiety-related situations with fear, lower accuracy, cognitive deficits, and low attention
Plana et al. (2014) [29]	2738	40 studies evaluating mentalization, emotion, social perception/knowledge, or attributional style in anxiety disorders	Post-traumatic stress disorder patients had mentalization and emotion recognition deficits, while other anxiety disorders showed attributional biases
Renna et al. (2018) [30]	17	Structured clinical interview Anxiety disorders interview schedule	Generalized anxiety disorder patients have attention issues Generalized anxiety is characterized by worry, which prevents distraction and draws attention to the threat. Lack of attention reduces social skills
Stefanopoulou et al. (2014) [14]	17	Penn State Worry Questionnaire, BDI-II, N-Back Task, Random Generation Key-Pressing Task, mood ratings, WTAR	Generalized anxiety disorder patients have fewer attentional control resources while worrying Anxious people have fewer resources to perform concurrent thinking tasks when thinking about personal topics Verbal preoccupation requires less attentional control, suggesting negative biases use resources
Tempesta et al. (2013) [31]	40	STAI, BDI, PSQI, TAS-20	The WCST showed that young subjects’ executive functions and immediate recall were affected Antidepressants reduced sustained attention performance, making it harder to stay alert
White et al. (2017) [32]	78	A passive avoidance task	Generalized anxiety disorder impaired reinforcement-based decision making