Threat detection and fear memories are typical adaptive-survival behaviours depending upon proximity, intensity, and the likelihood of following an aversive outcome. However, there is a distinction between the two processes. Threat detection can be understood as the primal processes involved in the formation of experience; asserting that emotions are higher-order processes engrained in the cortical circuits forming consciousness. The human emotional experience of fear is the result of the complicated interaction of threat-detecting systems with memory processes- storage and retrieval and vigilance of the environment. In this paper, we examined the role of fear or threat-inducing and neutral stimuli using shallow and deep instructions on memory encoding. We investigated how people with high anxiety encode information in the environment differently from people with no anxiety. We study the effect of shallow and deep instructions on people with high anxiety. Images were sequentially presented at the encoding phase, followed by a break where the participants engage in playing games and then into the retrieval phase. We used a standardized questionnaire to assess trait anxiety. Our results show that people with high anxiety have better retrieval for negative stimuli. Though, we find that people tend to encode negative stimuli over positive and neutral stimuli. Moreover, we find that people with high anxiety encode negative information significantly greater during shallow instruction than when provided with deep instruction. Findings suggest individuals are more prone to negative over positive information encoding supporting survival instincts, individuals with high anxiety encode information relying on negative retrieval bias.