The interaction effect of attentional bias and attentional control on dispositional anxiety among adolescents

Research has shown that children and adolescents with attentional control deficits tend to have high anxiety and exhibit threat‐related selective attentional bias. This study aimed to investigate how positive and negative attentional biases would interact with attentional control on dispositional anxiety. One hundred and twenty participants aged 18 years of age or younger participated in a visual dot‐probe task to measure their attentional bias and completed psychological questionnaires to measure their trait anxiety, and attentional control. Mean reaction times to the probe in milliseconds were used to measure attentional bias. Overall, our participants showed a bigger tendency towards attending to positive emotional stimuli than to negative emotional stimuli. Adolescents with high dispositional anxiety showed poorer attentional control. Regression analyses showed that attentional control interact with negative attentional bias to affect anxiety. For participants with high attentional control, higher negative attentional bias was associated with lower trait anxiety. Trait anxiety was not related to negative attentional bias for participants with low attentional control. Positive attentional bias showed no significant relationship with dispositional anxiety, either alone or in interaction with attentional control. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are also discussed.     

焦虑和抑郁对正负性注意偏向的影响：注意控制的中介作用

采用状态-特质焦虑量表、流调抑郁量表、注意控制量表和正负性信息注意量表,对481名在校大学生进行调查研究,考察了焦虑、抑郁对注意偏向的影响,并探讨了注意控制在其中的中介作用。研究发现：（1）正性注意偏向与注意控制呈正相关,与状态焦虑、特质焦虑和流调抑郁呈负相关;负性注意偏向与注意控制呈负相关,与状态焦虑、特质焦虑和流调抑郁呈正相关。（2）特质焦虑、注意集中、注意转移可显著预测正性注意偏向,状态焦虑、流调抑郁和注意集中则显著预测负性注意偏向。（3）注意转移和注意集中中介了状态焦虑、特质焦虑、流调抑郁和正、负性注意偏向间的关系。研究提示注意控制是一个重要的保护性因素,可缓解或消除焦虑和抑郁对注意偏向的负面影响。     

Distinguishing youths at risk for anxiety disorders from self‐reported BIS sensitivity and its psychophysiological concomitants

The aim of the study was to explore the psychophysiological concomitants of self‐reported behavioral inhibition system (BIS) sensitivity in adolescents (12 to 17 years old) supposed to be at risk for anxiety disorders. Twenty participants with high scores in self‐reported BIS sensitivity (at‐risk group) were matched in age and sex to 20 participants scoring in the normal range in BIS sensitivity (control group). Negative affect, negative emotion regulation style, and anxiety symptomatology were assessed by means of self‐reported measures. Cardiac and electrodermal response signals were recorded during baseline, paced breathing, exposure to an attentional task with response cost and fear‐relevant slides conditions. The at‐risk group exhibited higher scores on measures of negative affect, negative emotion regulation style, and anxiety symptomatology than their control counterparts. After controlling for negative styles of emotion regulation, groups did not differ in skin conductance reactivity during the attentional task with response cost, but participants at risk exhibited more nonspecific skin conductance responses than the control group during baseline recording. Regarding the cardiac concomitants, participants at risk presented lower vagal tone at resting conditions as compared to participants in the control group. Additionally, at‐risk participants exhibited lower flexibility across experimental conditions in heart rate and cardiac sample entropy measures than participants in the control group. These findings add knowledge on psychophysiological concomitants of BIS sensitivity and are discussed in light of associations between temperament and development of anxiety disorders in youth. They show how psychophysiological patterns observed in resting conditions could be useful endophenotypes to reliably detect individuals at risk before the disorder onset.     

创伤个体注意控制、焦虑及情绪对闯入记忆的影响

以往研究认为认知控制在闯入记忆的发展中起一定作用。研究以83名大学生本科生为被试,采用创伤电影范式和问卷调查结合的方式,旨在考察创伤个体注意控制、焦虑及情绪对闯入记忆的影响。结果显示,注意控制、焦虑和情绪与闯入记忆相关;注意控制和观看创伤电影前的消极情绪对闯入记忆有一定的预测作用;注意控制与焦虑、情绪相关;高低注意控制组分别在焦虑、情绪上差异显著。注意控制、焦虑、创伤前负性情绪与闯入记忆相关;注意控制、创伤前负性情绪显著影响闯入记忆。 关键词：闯入记忆;注意控制;焦虑;情绪;创伤     

不同性质的评价对特质焦虑者抑制功能影响的ERP研究

特质焦虑者作为焦虑障碍易感性个体,会表现出对威胁性刺激的注意偏向,从而损害中央执行系统的抑制功能。但是不同情绪性评价刺激会如何调控特质焦虑者的抑制功能还不太清楚。为此,本研究以脑电P3b为抑制功能指标,要求高低特质焦虑组在三种不同评价下完成反向眼跳范式,考察不同性质的评价如何影响特质焦虑的抑制功能。行为结果发现,高焦虑组比低焦虑组错误率更高;积极评价条件下,高焦虑组的反应时慢于低焦虑组。ERP结果进一步发现,无评价条件下,高焦虑组的P3b波幅大于低焦虑组;低焦虑者在积极评价条件下的P3b波幅大于消极评价条件,但是高焦虑者没有显著差异。结果表明,积极评价会损害高特质焦虑者的抑制功能,而消极评价则促进了高特质焦虑个体的抑制功能。     

Normative and idiosyncratic measures of positive and negative affect in sport

Objectives: The purposes of the study were to: (a) ascertain the degree of similarity amongst normative and idiosyncratic measures of affect; (b) test the notion of reversal effects on the functional impact and the hedonic tone of emotions; (c) analyse the differences on the intensity of facilitating-positive, facilitating-negative, inhibiting-positive, and inhibiting-negative performance emotion content categories, and (d) test whether competitive trait anxiety intensity could predict pre-performance normative or idiosyncratic negative affect intensity.Design: A cross-sectional study design was employed using normative and idiosyncratic measures of affect.Methods: Experienced male soccer and volleyball players (N =124) were individually assessed. Normative scales were the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) used as a sport-specific trait measure of competitive affect, and the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS) administered for the assessment of competitive trait anxiety. Idiosyncratic affect occurring prior to or during optimal and poor competitions was identified in the conceptual framework of the Hanin's Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF) model (Hanin, Y.L. (1997). Emotions and athletic performance: Individual zones of optimal functioning model. European Yearbook of Sport Psychology, 1, 29–72).Results: Findings revealed low overlap amongst the PANAS items and the idiosyncratic items, reversal effects on the functional impact and the hedonic tone of emotions, higher level of positive affect associated with optimal performance when compared with all other affect categories, and lower levels of facilitating-negative category when compared with the facilitating-positive. Moreover, sport trait anxiety intensity was found to predict negative affect intensity as assessed by the PANAS normative scales and by the idiosyncratic items. For idiosyncratic affect, however, significant differences emerged only when comparing individuals with very high or very low anxiety symptoms.Conclusions: Idiosyncratic affect scales together with normative scales are recommended for research and applied purposes. The functional impact as well as the hedonic tone of emotion items need to be examined according to individual perception.     

Temperament, anxiety, and attentional control

To regulate attention has been a significant component of individual differences in temperament, and other research supported a relation between measures of attentional control and anxiety, i.e., high scores on trait anxiety were correlated with inability to regulate attention in response to the environment, so enhanced attentional control may interact with dimensions of temperament to modify the effects of generalized anxiety. To test this hypothesis, 69 undergraduates completed the Revised Dimensions of Temperament Survey, the Burns Anxiety Scale, and the Derryberry and Reed measure of Attentional Control. Analysis suggested attentional control may be a significant factor in modifying reported anxiety. Further research is warranted, given the present small sample tested with numerous measures.     

特质焦虑个体在高难度Stroop任务下的情绪启动效应

通过问卷法,选取特质焦虑和非特质焦虑被试作为本实验的研究对象,考察了正性、负性、中性三种不同的情绪对不同特质焦虑个体认知抑制的影响。在Stroop任务之前呈现三种情绪图片,结果发现,相比非特质焦虑被试,特质焦虑被试的Stroop效应量更大;特质焦虑被试和非特质焦虑被试在正性和负性情绪条件下的Stroop效应量均更大。说明特质焦虑被试的认知抑制功能存在不足,正性和负性情绪对特质焦虑和非特质焦虑被试的认知抑制均存在阻碍作用。     

Emotional lability, negative affect and emotional regulation in children of anxious mothers

This study examined the role of emotional lability and negative affect and emotional regulation in the relation between maternal trait anxiety and attentional and social problems, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms of 275 six- to eleven-year-old children. The results indicated a direct moderating effect of emotional regulation in the relation between maternal anxiety and externalizing behaviour and that lability and negative affect moderated the relation between maternal anxiety and attention and social problems and somatic complaints. The links between maternal anxiety and withdrawal and anxiety/depression symptoms were also mediated by lability and negative affect. This mediation was independent of emotional regulation in the first case, and it depended on emotional regulation with regard to anxiety/depression symptoms.     

EEG theta/beta ratio as a potential biomarker for attentional control and resilience against deleterious effects of stress on attention

Anxious stress compromises cognitive executive performance. This occurs, for instance, in cognitive performance anxiety (CPA), in which anxiety about one’s cognitive performance causes that performance to actually deteriorate (e.g., test anxiety). This is thought to result from a prefrontal cortically (PFC) mediated failure of top-down attentional control over stress-induced automatic processing of threat-related information. In addition, stress-induced increased catecholamine influx into the PFC may directly compromise attentional function. Previous research has suggested that the ratio between resting state electroencephalographic (EEG) low- and high-frequency power (the theta/beta ratio) is related to trait attentional control, which might moderate these effects of stress on attentional function. The goals of the present study were to test the novel prediction that theta/beta ratio moderates the deleterious effects of CPA-like anxious stress on state attentional control and to replicate a previous finding that the theta/beta ratio is related to self-reported trait attentional control. After recording of baseline frontal EEG signals, 77 participants performed a stress induction or a control procedure. Trait attentional control was assessed with the Attentional Control Scale, whereas stress-induced changes in attentional control and anxiety were measured with self-report visual analogue scales. The hypothesized moderating influence of theta/beta ratio on the effects of stress on state attentional control was confirmed. Theta/beta ratio explained 28% of the variance in stress-induced deterioration of self-reported attentional control. The negative relationship between theta/beta ratio and trait attentional control was replicated (r = –.33). The theta/beta ratio reflects, likely prefrontally mediated, attentional control, and should be a useful biomarker for the study of CPA and other anxiety–cognition interactions.     

Attention to Positive and Negative Social-Evaluative Words: Investigating the Effects of Social Anxiety,Trait Anxiety and Social Threat

The study investigated how attention to negative (threatening) and positive social-evaluative words is affected by social anxiety, trait anxiety and the expectation of social threat. High and low socially anxious individuals carried out a modified dot-probe task either while expecting to give a speech or under non-threatening conditions. High socially anxious individuals showed no significant attentional bias towards or away from social-evaluative words. This result significantly contrasted with an identical design that showed avoidance of emotional faces in high socially anxious participants drawn from the same population (Mansell et al ., 1999). Participants who expected to give a speech showed less attentional avoidance of negative and positive social-evaluative words. High trait anxiety was associated with selective attention to negative relative to positive social-evaluative words, consistent with earlier findings of attention to threat cues in high trait-anxious individuals. Implications for designing attention tasks and attentional bias across different dimensions of anxiety are discussed.     

特质焦虑大学生注意偏向的实验研究

焦虑与注意偏向的研究是近年来情绪与认知领域的热点.本研究采用点探测和线索靶子两个实验任务来探讨特质焦虑大学生注意偏向的特点及其内在机制.结果表明:(1)高特质焦虑大学生对负性情绪词附近靶刺激的反应时显著短于中性和正性情绪词附近的靶刺激.表现出一种对负性刺激的注意偏向.而低特质焦虑大学生没有出现注意偏向;(2)高低特质焦虑大学生在有效线索情况下反应时没有显著差异;在无效线索情况下.高特质焦虑大学生对以负性情绪词为线索的靶刺激反应时显著长于对其他靶刺激的反应时,表现出一种对负性刺激的空间注意的解除困难.因此,高特质焦虑个体对负性刺激的注意偏向是一种注意解除困难.     

The discrepant repressor: differentiation between low anxiety, high anxiety, and repression of anxiety by autonomic-facial-verbal patterns of behavior

This study examined the notion that personality questionnaires can be used to predict different styles of coping with anxiety as expressed by individual differences in patterns of autonomic, verbal, and nonverbal reactions. In line with earlier modifications of the repression-sensitization concept, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS) were used to select four groups of 12 subjects each from a pool of 206 male students in Germany: low-anxious subjects (low MAS, low SDS), repressors (low MAS, high SDS), high-anxious subjects (high MAS, low SDS), and defensive high-anxious subjects (high MAS, high SDS). Several measures of autonomic arousal, facial activity, and self-reported affect were obtained during a potentially anxiety-arousing free-association task and during a number of control conditions, including a funny film. Significant differences in baseline-corrected heart rate and self-reported anxiety as well as rated facial anxiety all indicated that repressors exhibited a discrepancy between low self-reported anxiety and high heart rate and facial anxiety; low-anxious subjects reported an intermediate level of anxiety, although they showed low heart rate and facial anxiety; high-anxious subjects had consistently high values on all three variables; and the defensive high-anxious group showed an intermediate level of anxious responding. These group differences were specific to the task of freely associating to phrases of mixed (sexual, aggressive, neutral) content (but not to other experimental situations) and to self-reported anxiety (but not to other self-rated emotions or task difficult), indicating that they reflect individual differences in coping with anxiety.     

Implicit associations and social anxiety

The aim of this study was to test whether an Implicit Association Test (IAT) with self- and social anxiety-words is sensitive to differences in trait social anxiety, and to an experimental induction of social anxiety. This was performed in the context of a partial replication of a previous study, in which Mauss et al. (2004) compared high and low trait socially anxious individuals before and after a social anxiety induction (an impromptu speech). Mauss et al.'s findings were replicated; that is, (i) the social anxiety induction produced increases in self-rated anxiety, self-rated physiological responses, and actual physiological arousal; and (ii) higher trait social anxiety was associated with stronger self-rated anxiety and stronger self-rated physiological responses, but not with stronger actual physiological responses. In addition, the results showed higher IAT social anxiety scores, both (i) as a result of the social anxiety induction, and (ii) as a function of self-reported trait social anxiety. It is suggested that the IAT may be a useful method for the experimental study of automatic evaluational thought patterns.     

Vigilance for threat: effects of anxiety and defensiveness

Eysenck’s (1997) theory that attentional biases for threat vary as an interactive function of trait anxiety and defensiveness was tested using a visual probe task. Two stimulus exposure conditions were used to explore a secondary issue concerning attentional allocation over time. Results indicated that, among high trait anxious participants, only those with low levels of defensiveness showed vigilance for threatening faces presented for 500 ms. They also showed an attentional preference for neutral faces, relative to happy faces, irrespective of exposure condition. This pattern was reversed in high trait anxious participants with high levels of defensiveness, who showed an attentional bias towards happy faces (relative to neutral faces) under both exposure conditions. The findings are discussed in relation to their implications for (a) the significance of measures of defensiveness for the conceptualization of high trait anxious individuals, and (b) the status of anxiety-related biases at different stages of information processing.     

The Beck Anxiety Inventory-Trait (BAIT): a measure of dispositional anxiety not contaminated by dispositional depression

We describe development of the Beck Anxiety Inventory-Trait (BAIT), a measure of trait anxiety. In Study 1 with 191 undergraduates, the BAIT correlated higher with another trait-anxiety measure than with state anxiety and trait depressiveness and lower with depressiveness than the other trait-anxiety measure did. In Study 2 (Ns of 149 undergraduates initially and 107 at 3 weeks later), the BAIT demonstrated convergent validity against the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, 1988) and self-rated trait anxiety plus discriminant validity against abstract curiosity. In Study 3 (Ns of 161 undergraduates initially and 121 at 3 weeks later), the BAIT correlated more highly with another anxiety measure than with depression, stress, positive affect, and negative affect. It also showed good internal consistency across studies and high stability in Studies 2 and 3, higher than the BAI's in Study 2. Factor analyses across studies all supported 2 factors, 1 Somatic and 1 Subjective.     

The effect of trait anxiety and mood manipulation on the breadth of attention

Eysenck (1992) predicts that among trait‐anxious individuals high levels of state anxiety broaden the attentional beam in order to facilitate the detection of threat. An experiment was therefore conducted to investigate the interactive role of trait anxiety and mood manipulation on attentional broadening. Target material varying in threat‐relatedness and concern‐relevance was presented to participants' central (parafoveal) and peripheral visual field. Whilst a mood manipulation was associated with a broadening of the attentional beam, it occurred irrespective of trait anxiety. However, differences in the processing of target material were determined by an interaction between trait anxiety and the mood manipulation. Specifically, when placed in an anxiety‐provoking mood manipulation, those high in anxiety increased in their vigilance for concern‐relevant threatening material. These results are discussed in light of Eysenck's hypervigilance theory of anxiety and attention. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attentional biases for angry faces: Relationships to trait anger and anxiety

In two experiments selective attention to angry faces was investigated in relation to trait anger and anxiety. A pictorial emotional Stroop task comparing colour-naming latencies for neutral and angry faces was employed. In Experiment 1 using an unmasked task, individuals scoring high on trait anger showed an attentional bias for angry faces. In Experiment 2, unmasked and masked versions of the task were used. Individuals were selected on low and high trait anxiety, but there was no indication of a relation between attentional bias scores and anxiety. When individuals were subsequently reallocated to groups on the basis of trait anger scores, the high anger group showed an attentional bias for angry faces in the unmasked and the masked task. Results are discussed in relation to recent neurobiological findings from our laboratory, as reflecting an evolutionary-evolved, content-specific response to the facial expression of anger.     

Post-Evaluative Biases Toward Somatic Stimuli and Cardiovascular Responses in Social Anxiety

Cognitive models of social anxiety emphasize the role of an attentional shift toward cues related to somatic state in social anxiety. We examined attentional biases to somatic cues and cardiovascular reactivity in response to a social evaluative task. Participants performed an impromptu speech during which they received standardized negative evaluative comments. Participants then completed a dot-probe task with social evaluative, somatic, and anger-related words. Blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) were assessed in 1-minute intervals during baseline, the speech task, and the dot-probe task. Despite the fact that a high social anxiety group reported higher levels of anxiety, high and low social anxiety groups did not differ in their speech task-evoked BP or HR responses. Furthermore, the high social anxiety group, compared to the low social anxiety group, exhibited greater attentional biases to somatic words, suggesting greater attention directed toward information pertinent to somatic arousal.     

Decision-related action orientation predicts police officers' shooting performance under pressure

Background and Objectives: We aimed to test whether police officers’ trait self-control strength decreases negative effects of high pressure (HP) on state anxiety, shooting behavior, and shooting performance. Design and Methods: Forty-two officers performed a shooting test under both high and low-pressure (LP) conditions. Self-control strength was assessed with the decision-related action orientation (AOD) scale of the Action Control Scale (ACS-90). Effects of AOD on perceived anxiety, heart rate, shooting time, and shot accuracy were estimated and controlled for those of other individual difference measures (i.e. age, police working experience, trait anxiety, and threat-related action orientation). Results: After controlling for baseline values in the LP condition as well as the other individual difference measures, AOD significantly predicted shot accuracy in the HP condition. Conclusions: Results suggest that trait self-control strength in the form of AOD helps officers cope with anxiety and maintain perceptual-motor performance under HP.