Exploring the Interplay of Working Memory, Apathy, and Mood/Emotional Factors

Background: Previous investigations on healthy humans showed conflicting evidence regarding the impact of mood on working memory performance. A systematic investigation of how mood affects apathy levels in healthy participants is currently missing. Methods: We administered a visuospatial (VS) and a numerical (N) n-back task to a sample of 120 healthy individuals. In these participants, using a series of questionnaires, we also evaluated apathy, mood, working memory, perceived stress, PTSD symptoms caused by the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, and general psychiatric symptoms. Successively, we investigated their performance in the n-back task as a function of scores to these questionnaires. Results: Participants performed better in the N block than in the VS one. Their accuracy decreased as a function of the n-back difficulty. We reported no differences in working memory performance or apathy as a function of mood, stress, or PTSD symptoms. We found that phobic anxiety negatively predicted accuracy to the numerical n-back task and that subjects with greater anxiety and difficulty in regulating emotions also showed higher levels of withdrawal from the task. Conclusion: The study's results suggest that while mood did not significantly affect working memory performance, strong associations were found between WMQ scores and working memory capabilities.