Conserved evolutionary history for quick detection of threatening faces

Humans quickly recognize threats such as snakes and threatening faces, suggesting that human ancestors evolved specialized visual systems to detect biologically relevant threat stimuli. Although non-human primates also detect snakes quickly, it is unclear whether primates share the efficient visual systems to process the threatening faces of their conspecifics. Primates may not necessarily process conspecific threats by facial expressions, because threats from conspecifics in natural situations are often accompanied by other cues such as threatening actions (or attacks) and vocal calls. Here, we show a similar threat superiority effect in both humans and macaque Japanese monkeys. In visual search tasks, monkeys and humans both responded to pictures of a threatening face of an unfamiliar adult male monkey among neutral faces faster than to pictures of a neutral face among threatening faces. However, the monkeys’ response times to detect deviant pictures of a non-face stimulus were not slower when it was shown among threat faces than when it was shown among neutral faces. These results provide the first evidence that monkeys have an attentional bias toward the threatening faces of conspecifics and suggest that threatening faces are evolutionarily relevant fear stimuli. The subcortical visual systems in primates likely process not only snakes, but also more general biological threat-relevant stimuli, including threatening conspecific faces.     

Interpretation of homophones related to threat in anxiety states

In previous studies, we have established that anxiety states are characterized by an attentional bias that favors the processing of threatening stimuli. In the present study we extend this finding to ambiguous stimuli, specifically, homophones with spellings that correspond to either a threatening or a neutral meaning. As predicted, clinically anxious subjects used the threatening spellings relatively more than did controls, whereas recovered subjects were intermediate in this respect. Threatening words were associated with greater skin conductance responses than were neutral words, but the groups did not differ in their electrodermal reactions to homophones. We take these findings as evidence that, although the different meanings of ambiguous stimuli may be processed in parallel by all subjects, an interpretive bias operates such that anxiety-prone individuals tend to become preferentially aware of the more threatening meaning of such events.     

Time-course of attention for threatening pictures in high and low trait anxiety

Cognitive studies about anxiety suggest that the interplay between automatic and strategic biases in attention to threat is related to the persistence of fear. In the present study, the time-course of attention to pictures with varying threat levels was investigated in high trait anxious (HTA, n=21) and low trait anxious (LTA, n=22) students. In a visual probe detection task, high and mild threat pictures were presented at three durations: 100, 500, and 1250 ms. Results indicated that all individuals attended to the high threat pictures for the 100 ms condition. Differential responding between HTA and LTA individuals was found for the 500 ms condition: only HTA individuals showed an attentional bias for mild threatening stimuli. For the 1250 ms condition, the HTA individuals attended away from high and mild threat pictures. The observed pattern of differential attention to threatening pictures may explain the persistence of fear in HTA individuals.     

Attentional bias in high- and low-anxious individuals: evidence for threat-induced effects on engagement and disengagement

Attentional bias to threatening visual stimuli (words or pictures) is commonly present in anxious individuals, but not in non-anxious people. There is evidence to show that attentional bias to threat can be induced in all individuals when threat is imposed by threat not of symbolic nature, but by cues that predict aversive stimulation (loud noise or electric shock). However, it is not known whether attentional bias in such situations is still influenced by individual differences in anxiety. This question was addressed in two experiments using a spatial cuing task in which visual cues predicted the occurrence of an aversive event consisting of a loud human scream. Speeded attentional engagement to threat cues was positively correlated with trait anxiety in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 showed that speeded attentional engagement was present only in participants selected for high anxiety but not in low-anxious participants. In both experiments, slower disengagement from threat cues was found in all participants, irrespective of their trait anxiety levels.     

Attentional bias in high- and low-anxious individuals: Evidence for threat-induced effects on engagement and disengagement

Attentional bias to threatening visual stimuli (words or pictures) is commonly present in anxious individuals, but not in non-anxious people. There is evidence to show that attentional bias to threat can be induced in all individuals when threat is imposed by threat not of symbolic nature, but by cues that predict aversive stimulation (loud noise or electric shock). However, it is not known whether attentional bias in such situations is still influenced by individual differences in anxiety. This question was addressed in two experiments using a spatial cuing task in which visual cues predicted the occurrence of an aversive event consisting of a loud human scream. Speeded attentional engagement to threat cues was positively correlated with trait anxiety in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 showed that speeded attentional engagement was present only in participants selected for high anxiety but not in low-anxious participants. In both experiments, slower disengagement from threat cues was found in all participants, irrespective of their trait anxiety levels.     

Internal versus external attention in social anxiety: an investigation using a novel paradigm

Several cognitive models propose that social anxiety is associated with increased self-focused attention. Indirect evidence for this hypothesis has been provided by questionnaire studies, and by cognitive psychology paradigms that have demonstrated reduced processing of external information during feared social-evaluative situations. However, no studies have simultaneously measured on-line attention to internal and external events. A probe detection task that aimed to measure the balance of attention between internal and external stimuli was developed. High and low socially anxious individuals were instructed to detect two probes. The external probe was superimposed on pictures of faces (happy, neutral, angry) or household objects that were presented on a VDU. The 'internal' probe was a pulse to the finger which participants were led to believe represented significant changes in their physiology. Compared to low speech anxious individuals, high speech anxious individuals showed an internal attentional bias, that was specific to conditions of social-evaluative threat.     

Threat-based cognitive biases in anxious children: comparison with non-anxious children before and after cognitive behavioural treatment

Attention and interpretation biases for threat stimuli were assessed in 19 anxious (ANX) children before and after cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and compared with responses from 19 non-anxious (NA) control children collected over the same period. Attentional bias was assessed using a picture version of the visual probe task with threat, neutral and pleasant pictures. Threat interpretation bias was assessed using both a homographs task in which children used homograph words in a sentence and their neutral or threatening meaning was assessed, and a stories task in which children rated their negative emotion, danger judgments, and influencing ability in ambiguous situations. ANX children showed attention biases towards threat on the visual probe task and threat interpretation biases on the stories task but not the homographs task at pre-treatment in comparison with NA children. Following treatment, ANX children's threat interpretation biases as assessed on the stories task reduced significantly to within levels comparable to NA children. However, ANX children continued to show larger attentional biases towards threat than pleasant pictures on the visual probe task at post-treatment, whereas NA children did not show attentional biases. Moreover, a residual threat interpretation style on the stories task at post-treatment was associated with higher anxiety symptoms in both ANX and NA children.     

情绪对认知加工的影响：事件相关脑电位系列研究

为探讨情绪与认知的相互作用关系及其脑机制,建立了情境图片、面孔、汉字和声音四个系列组成的中国情感刺激材料库,并通过ERP实验对情绪与注意、工作记忆的关系以及特质焦虑者的认知特点进行了研究。结果发现：⑴ 负性情绪刺激在信息加工过程中至少在注意、评价及反应准备这几个阶段具有某种优先权,注意偏向也可在内隐任务下发生,负性刺激对注意资源不足具有某种补偿作用;⑵ 威胁性视觉提示对其后的视觉加工具有调节作用,高焦虑个体对这类性刺激投入了更多的视觉加工资源,而且威胁性刺激对注意的影响可以跨通道进行,威胁性的视觉刺激可以影响触觉注意;⑶ 在情绪对工作记忆的影响方面,负性情绪下空间工作记忆任务引起的P300波幅减小,这种效应可能是基于情绪对顶叶注意系统的调节作用,而在词语工作记忆任务中这种效应消失     

Selective orienting of attention to masked threat faces in social anxiety

The aims of the study were two-fold: to examine whether previous evidence of a pre-attentive bias for masked threat faces in anxious individuals could be replicated, and to assess the relationship between the predicted bias and measures of trait and social anxiety. Pairs of face stimuli were briefly displayed and masked in a modified version of the visual probe task. Results indicated that high anxious individuals were faster to respond to probes occurring in the spatial location of masked threat rather than neutral faces; consistent with their attention being automatically captured by sub-threshold threat cues. Furthermore, this vigilance effect for masked threat faces appeared to be primarily a function of social anxiety and social avoidance, rather than trait anxiety. It was also more apparent when threat faces were presented in the left visual field, suggestive of right hemisphere involvement.     

Memory bias for threatening information related to anxiety: an updated meta-analytic review

The evidence for an anxiety-related memory bias is contradictory. We compiled 171 articles published until October 2016 including a group with clinical or subclinical anxiety and a control group in tasks involving implicit or explicit memory using threatening stimuli. There was an anxiety-related memory bias in free recall tasks, but it was not observed in another memory task. The between-groups differences showed that the anxious group recalled more threatening stimuli than the control group (d?=?0.321). When we compared the group differences (anxious vs. control participants) in the within-groups effect (threatening vs. neutral stimuli), a moderate effect size emerged (d_bw?=?0.714). This anxiety-related memory bias was observed with shallow processing, that is consistent with attentional biases related to anxiety. There was also evidence that high-anxious persons recall fewer positive stimuli. Future research is needed to investigate whether this result is a memory or encoding bias and explore other moderator variables.     

Early attention processes and anxiety in children

It has been hypothesized that anxiety in children is associated with attentional bias in the early stages of information processing. Bias towards threat indicates the tendency of an individual to direct attention towards threatening information. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether high test-anxiety in a sample of nonreferred children is associated with attentional bias towards threat pictures, and if low test-anxiety is associated with attentional bias away from threat pictures. A probe-detection task was used with 44 10- to 13-yr.-old children. The overall analyses indicated the presence of an attentional bias away from threatening pictures in these nonreferred children. However, in relation to anxiety, the study did not confirm that high anxious children show an attentional bias towards threatening pictures or that low anxious children show an attentional bias away from threatening pictures. Yet, higher anxiety did seem to be associated with longer mean response times. These longer response times might originate from the interpretation of the nature of a stimulus as too threatening, compared to the actual threatening content, in the first stage of information processing. This finding could be useful to improve treatment methods aimed at anxiety symptoms during childhood.     

Attentional bias toward fear-related stimuli: an investigation with nonselected children and adults and children with anxiety disorders

Research investigating anxiety-related attentional bias for emotional information in anxious and nonanxious children has been equivocal with regard to whether a bias for fear-related stimuli is unique to anxious children or is common to children in general. Moreover, recent cognitive theories have proposed that an attentional bias for objectively threatening stimuli may be common to all individuals, with this effect enhanced in anxious individuals. The current study investigated whether an attentional bias toward fear-related pictures could be found in nonselected children (n=105) and adults (n=47) and whether a sample of clinically anxious children (n=23) displayed an attentional bias for fear-related pictures over and above that expected for nonselected children. Participants completed a dot-probe task that employed fear-related, neutral, and pleasant pictures. As expected, both adults and children showed a stronger attentional bias toward fear-related pictures than toward pleasant pictures. Consistent with some findings in the childhood domain, the extent of the attentional bias toward fear-related pictures did not differ significantly between anxious children and nonselected children. However, compared with nonselected children, anxious children showed a stronger attentional bias overall toward affective picture stimuli.     

Health anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and attentional biases for pictorial and linguistic health-threat cues

The study investigated attentional biases for pictorial and linguistic health-threat stimuli in high and low health anxious individuals, who were selected from the upper and lower quartile ranges of a normal sample using a screening measure of health anxiety. Attentional bias was assessed using a visual probe task which presented health-threat and neutral pictures and words at two exposure durations, 500 ms and 1250 ms. The prediction that the high health anxious group would show a greater attentional bias for health-threat cues than the low health anxious group was not supported despite the groups being well-differentiated on a general measure of health anxiety, the Illness Attitudes Scale (IAS). Instead, the results indicated that individuals with high levels of anxiety sensitivity showed a significantly greater initial attentional bias for threat pictures compared with those with low anxiety sensitivity, as assessed by the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI).     

Health anxiety,anxiety sensitivity,and attentional biases for pictorial and linguistic health‐threat cues

The study investigated attentional biases for pictorial and linguistic health‐threat stimuli in high and low health anxious individuals, who were selected from the upper and lower quartile ranges of a normal sample using a screening measure of health anxiety. Attentional bias was assessed using a visual probe task which presented health‐threat and neutral pictures and words at two exposure durations, 500 ms and 1250 ms. The prediction that the high health anxious group would show a greater attentional bias for health‐threat cues than the low health anxious group was not supported despite the groups being well‐differentiated on a general measure of health anxiety, the Illness Attitudes Scale (IAS). Instead, the results indicated that individuals with high levels of anxiety sensitivity showed a significantly greater initial attentional bias for threat pictures compared with those with low anxiety sensitivity, as assessed by the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI).     

Superior detection of threat-relevant stimuli in infancy

The ability to quickly detect potential threat is an important survival mechanism for humans and other animals. Past research has established that adults have an attentional bias for the detection of threat-relevant stimuli, including snakes and spiders as well as angry human faces. Recent studies have documented that preschool children also detect the presence of threatening stimuli more quickly than various non-threatening stimuli. Here we report the first evidence that this attentional bias is present even in infancy. In two experiments, 8- to 14-month-old infants responded more rapidly to snakes than to flowers and more rapidly to angry than to happy faces. These data provide the first evidence of enhanced visual detection of threat-relevant stimuli in infants and hence offer especially strong support for the existence of a general bias for the detection of threat in humans.     

社交焦虑个体对正性面孔刺激的解释偏差

本研究分别在短时（60ms）和长时（无时间限制）条件下呈现匹配的正性和中性面孔,要求高、低社交焦虑被试选择更具威胁性的面孔,以验证两者对正性刺激是否存在主观解释偏差,并考察该偏差产生于认知加工的哪一阶段。结果发现,长时条件下,高焦虑组选择正性面孔的比例显著高于低焦虑组;短时条件下无显著差异。提示高社交焦虑个体对正性刺激存在主观、外显的解释偏差,他们更倾向于对正性刺激做出消极解释,并且这种偏差产生于认知加工的后期。     

Trait mindfulness and attention to emotional information: An eye tracking study

Biased attention for emotional information is associated with the emotional disorders. Trait mindfulness is associated with lower depression and anxiety and with improved attentional control. Mindfulness is also related to lower levels of brooding rumination. The current study examined the association between trait mindfulness, brooding rumination, depressed and anxious state moods, and attention to emotional visual stimuli utilizing eye tracking methodology. Participants were 158 undergraduates. Trait mindfulness was negatively associated with attention to sad and threatening stimuli, but was not associated with attention to positive or neutral stimuli. There was an indirect effect of mindfulness on attention to sad stimuli through brooding rumination. Data are cross sectional but provide initial evidence that mindfulness may partially exert its effects on depression and anxiety by lessening attention to negatively-valenced stimuli.     

Biased attention in childhood Anxiety disorders: A preliminary study

This study provides preliminary tests of two hypotheses: (1) Anxiety-disordered children show an attentional bias toward emotionally threatening stimuli, and (2) normal controls show an attentional bias away from emotionally threatening stimuli. Twelve children, 9 to 14 years of age, with primary diagnoses of anxiety disorder were compared with 12 normal controls matched for age, gender, vocabulary level, and reading ability. Subjects completed a reaction time task that measured visual attention toward threatening versus neutral words. The anxious group showed the predicted attentional bias toward threat words. However, controls did not show the predicted bias away from threat words. These results are the first showing that biased attentional processing occurs among clinically anxious children. The potential role of such an attentional bias in childhood anxiety disorders and future direction for research are discussed.This research was supported by a Seed Grant and a Small Grant to the first author from The Ohio State University. Portions of this paper were presented at the 27th Annual Convention of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Atlanta, November 1993. Thanks are extended to the participants and all those who helped with the project.     

刷微博，让焦虑的人更焦虑——特质焦虑对青少年注意情绪刺激的影响

采用自由观看眼动追踪范式,考察特质焦虑青少年在观看情绪面孔图片过程中的眼动轨迹。结果发现,高特质焦虑组对愤怒和恐惧面孔的首次注视到达时间（TFF）较快,首次注视持续时间（TFD）较短;低特质焦虑组对愤怒和恐惧面孔的TFF虽然稍早于平静面孔,但差异不显著。在刺激呈现1000ms之后,高特质焦虑组对愤怒和恐惧面孔的注视次数（FC）较多,平均注视持续时间（AFD）较短。低特质焦虑组对愤怒和恐惧面孔的FC较少,AFD较长;这就表明,高特质焦虑青少年在认知加工早期对威胁性刺激注意定向加速,没有注意解除困难,呈现“浅尝辄止”现象。而在认知加工晚期,他们则对威胁性刺激存在“反刍”现象。     

The relationship between social anxiety and the perception of depth-ambiguous biological motion stimuli is mediated by inhibitory ability

Orthographically projected biological motion stimuli are depth-ambiguous. Consequently, their projection when oriented towards the viewer is the same as when oriented away. Despite this, observers tend to interpret such stimuli as facing the viewer more often. Some have speculated that this facing-the-viewer bias may exist for sociobiological reasons: Mistaking another human as retreating when they are actually approaching could have more severe consequences than the opposite error. An implication of this theory is that the facing-towards percept may be perceived as more threatening than the facing-away percept. Given this, as well as the finding that anxious individuals have been found to display an attentional bias towards threatening stimuli, we reasoned that more anxious individuals might have stronger facing-the-viewer biases. Furthermore, since anxious individuals have been found to perform poorer on inhibition tasks, we hypothesized that inhibitory ability would mediate the relationship between anxiety and the facing-the-viewer bias (i.e., difficulty inhibiting the threatening percept). Exploring individual differences, we asked participants to complete anxiety questionnaires, to perform a Go/No-Go task, and then to complete a perceptual task that allowed us to assess their facing-the-viewer biases. As hypothesized, we found that both greater anxiety and weaker inhibitory ability were associated with greater facing-the-viewer biases. In addition, we found that inhibitory ability significantly mediated the relationship between anxiety and facing-the-viewer biases. Our results provide further support that the facing-the-viewer bias is sensitive to the sociobiological relevance of biological motion stimuli, and that the threat bias for ambiguous visual stimuli is mediated by inhibitory ability.