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.     

Negative Affectivity, Effortful Control, and Attention to Threat-Relevant Stimuli

There is increasing recognition of temperamental influences on risk for psychopathology. Whereas the link between the broad temperament construct of negative affectivity (NA) and problems associated with anxiety and depression is now well-established, the mechanisms through which this link operate are not well understood. One possibility involves interactions between reactive and effortful components of temperament, as well as cognitive factors, like attentional biases to threat stimuli. This study tested a predicted relation between high levels of NA, low levels of effortful control (EC), and an attentional bias toward threat in children. A sample of 104 4th through 12th graders, selected from a larger screening sample because they reported high or low levels of trait NA and EC, completed a dot probe detection task. Results indicated that EC moderated the relation between NA and attentional bias; only children with low levels of EC and high levels of NA showed an attentional bias to threat stimuli. This pattern was not moderated by grade level or age.

The role of athletes' pain-related anxiety in pain-related attentional processes

Numerous researchers have highlighted the social determinants of athletes' attitude toward pain, yet little is known about the role of cognitive processes and emotions that are related to pain in sport endeavors. There is evidence, in a dot probe paradigm, that individuals with chronic pain selectively orient their attention toward pain-related stimuli, but no studies have differentiated between the two attentional processes of hypervigilance that are evident in athletes: facilitated detection of threat and difficulty in disengaging attention from threatening stimuli. In the present study using a dot probe paradigm, we examined whether professional rugby players (N=58) with high pain-related anxiety (HPA) would show an attentional bias for pain-related threat, and whether this hypervigilance would reflect difficulty disengaging from threat or facilitated detection of threat. Rugby players with HPA oriented their attention toward pain-related threat with a concomitant difficulty disengaging from threat. Difficulty disengaging from painful stimuli may increase anxiety, and thus be maladaptive in sport. This is the first study to identify pain-related anxiety as a vulnerability marker in athletes' attentional biases.     

Intergenerational transmission of attentional bias and anxiety

Earlier evidence has revealed a bi‐directional causal relationship between anxiety and attention biases in adults and children. This study investigated the prospective and concurrent relations between anxiety and attentional bias in a sample of 89 families (mothers, fathers, and first‐born children). Parents’ and children's attentional bias was measured when children were 7.5 years old, using both a visual probe task and visual search task with angry versus happy facial expressions. Generalized and social anxiety symptoms in parents and children were measured when children were 4.5 and 7.5 years old. Anxiety in parents and children was prospectively (but not concurrently) related to their respective attentional biases to threat: All participants showed a larger attentional bias to threat in the visual search (but not in the visual probe) task if they were more anxious at the 4.5 (but not at the 7.5) year measurement. Moreover, parents’ anxiety levels were prospectively predictive of the visual search attentional bias of their children after controlling for child anxiety. More anxiety in mothers at 4.5 years was related to a faster detection of angry among happy faces, while more anxiety in fathers predicted a faster detection of happy among angry faces in children at 7.5 years. We found no direct association between parental and child attentional biases. Our study contributes to the recently emerging literature on attentional biases as a potential mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety by showing that parents’ anxiety rather than parents’ attentional bias contributes to the intergenerational transmission of risk for child anxiety.     

The time-course of threat processing in children: a temporal dissociation between selective attention and behavioral interference

Although selective attention to threatening information is an adaptive mechanism, exaggerated attention to threat may be related to anxiety disorders. However, studies examining threat processing in children have obtained mixed findings. In the present study, the time-course of attentional bias for threat and behavioral interference was analyzed in a community sample of 8-18-year-old children (N=33) using a pictorial dot probe task. Threatening and neutral stimuli were shown during 17 ms (masked), 500 ms, and 1250 ms. Results provide preliminary evidence of an automatic attentional bias for threat at 17 ms that persists during later, more controlled stages of information processing (500 and 1250 ms). Furthermore, participants showed a delayed response to threat-containing trials relative to neutral trials in the 500 and 1250 ms condition, which may indicate interference by threat. Together, these results suggest that an attentional bias for threat precedes behavioral interference in children. Furthermore, results indicate that performance in daily life can be temporarily interrupted by the processing of threatening information. In addition, results of earlier studies into selective attention in children using tasks based on behavioral responses may have been confounded by interference effects of threat. For future studies, we recommend to take behavioral interference into account.     

Attention Biases to Threat Link Behavioral Inhibition to Social Withdrawal over Time in Very Young Children

Behaviorally inhibited children display a temperamental profile characterized by social withdrawal and anxious behaviors. Previous research, focused largely on adolescents, suggests that attention biases to threat may sustain high levels of behavioral inhibition (BI) over time, helping link early temperament to social outcomes. However, no prior studies examine the association between attention bias and BI before adolescence. The current study examined the interrelations among BI, attention biases to threat, and social withdrawal already manifest in early childhood. Children (N = 187, 83 Male, M _age  = 61.96 months) were characterized for BI in toddlerhood (24 & 36 months). At 5 years, they completed an attention bias task and concurrent social withdrawal was measured. As expected, BI in toddlerhood predicted high levels of social withdrawal in early childhood. However, this relation was moderated by attention bias. The BI-withdrawal association was only evident for children who displayed an attention bias toward threat. The data provide further support for models associating attention with socioemotional development and the later emergence of clinical anxiety.     

Attention training and the threat bias: an ERP study

Anxiety is characterized by exaggerated attention to threat. Several studies suggest that this threat bias plays a causal role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Furthermore, although the threat bias can be reduced in anxious individuals and induced in non-anxious individual, the attentional mechanisms underlying these changes remain unclear. To address this issue, 49 non-anxious adults were randomly assigned to either attentional training toward or training away from threat using a modified version of the dot probe task. Behavioral measures of attentional biases were also generated pre- and post-training using the dot probe task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were generated to threat and non-threat face pairs and probes during pre- and post-training assessments. Effects of training on behavioral measures of the threat bias were significant, but only for those participants showing pre-training biases. Attention training also influenced early spatial attention, as measured by post-training P1 amplitudes to cues. Results illustrate the importance of taking pre-training attention biases in non-anxious individuals into account when evaluating the effects of attention training and tracking physiological changes in attention following training.     

Anticipatory versus reactive spatial attentional bias to threat

Dot‐probe or visual probe tasks (VPTs) are used extensively to measure attentional biases. A novel variant termed the cued VPT (cVPT) was developed to focus on the anticipatory component of attentional bias. This study aimed to establish an anticipatory attentional bias to threat using the cVPT and compare its split‐half reliability with a typical dot‐probe task. A total of 120 students performed the cVPT task and dot‐probe tasks. Essentially, the cVPT uses cues that predict the location of pictorial threatening stimuli, but on trials on which probe stimuli are presented the pictures do not appear. Hence, actual presentation of emotional stimuli did not affect responses. The reliability of the cVPT was higher at most cue–stimulus intervals and was .56 overall. A clear anticipatory attentional bias was found. In conclusion, the cVPT may be of methodological and theoretical interest. Using visually neutral predictive cues may remove sources of noise that negatively impact reliability. Predictive cues are able to bias response selection, suggesting a role of predicted outcomes in automatic processes.     

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.     

Attentional bias for words and faces in social anxiety

Conflicting findings concerning the nature and presence of attentional bias in social anxiety and social phobia have been reported in the literature. This paper reports the findings of two studies comparing people with high and low social anxiety on dot probe tasks using words, faces photographed in front view, and faces photographed in profile as stimuli. In Study 1 those with high social anxiety displayed an attentional bias towards negative faces. The low social anxiety group showed an attentional bias towards positive faces. No significant effects were observed on the dot probe using words as stimuli. Study 2 used pairs of faces presented in profile as though looking at each other. One of the faces displayed either a positive, negative or neutral expression. The second face always had a neutral expression, and in half of the trials it was the subject's own face. The findings of this more ecologically valid procedure replicated those of Study 1. Facilitated attention to dots following emotional faces was specific to threatening facial stimuli. From these studies it appears that the facial dot probe task is a more sensitive index of attentional bias than the word task in a non-clinical sample with social anxiety.     

急性应激对威胁刺激注意定向和注意解除的影响:认知神经机制研究

急性应激和注意偏向是焦虑障碍和创伤后应激障碍发生和症状保持的两个重要因素。急性应激导致交感神经系统激活以及儿茶酚胺和糖皮质激素分泌增加,因而影响对威胁刺激的注意偏向。但是急性应激如何影响注意偏向中的注意定向和注意解除尚不清楚。本项目采用点探测任务、威胁线索空间提示任务,结合恐惧条件反射、眼动和事件相关电位技术,研究急性应激对注意定向和注意解除影响的认知神经机制。研究结果可为治疗焦虑和创伤后应激障碍提供支持,为公共卫生管理政策的制定提供建议。     

Selective attention and threat: quick orienting versus slow disengagement and two versions of the dot probe task

The dot probe task is often used to assess attentional bias in anxiety, but some aspects need clarification. First, the results, which are traditionally summarized in an attentional bias index, do not allow for distinguishing between different selective attention processes; orienting and disengagement. Second, different versions of the dot probe task have been used with unknown relative merits. Participants (N=133) completed two versions of the dot probe task: the detection task (i.e. is there a probe?) and the differentiation task (i.e. what sort of probe is it?). The analysis carried out allowed for a differentiation between orienting and disengagement. The main finding was that trait anxiety is related to disengagement difficulties and not to speed of orienting. Concerning the relative merits of the two dot probe task versions, the results suggest that the detection task may be superior to the differentiation task. Implications for past and future research are discussed.     

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.     

Trait anxiety, defensiveness and selective processing of threat: an investigation using two measures of attentional bias

Attentional biases for threat were examined in a non-clinical sample (N=60), with each participant tested on both the modified Stroop colour-naming and dot probe tasks. Three groups were selected on the basis of trait anxiety and social desirability scale (SDS) scores: “low anxiety” (LA: low trait, low SDS), “repressor” (REP: low trait, high SDS) and “high anxiety” (HA: high trait, low SDS). Results from the colour-naming task suggested that high levels of defensiveness (in combination with low trait anxiety) were associated with greater avoidance of threat. The REP group showed less interference in colour-naming threat than neutral words; whereas the HA group showed increased interference due to threat words. On the dot probe task, there was a general tendency for this non-clinical sample as a whole to show avoidance of social threat relative to neutral words, but there was no bias for physical threat words. Avoidance of social threat was significant only within the REP group. No relationships were found between the measures of cognitive bias from the two tasks, suggesting different underlying mechanisms. Results are discussed in relation to previous findings and theoretical views of the effects of anxiety and defensiveness on the processing of threat.     

Responsiveness of measures of attentional bias to clinical change in social phobia

This study examined responsiveness of the dot probe measure of attentional bias to standard cognitive-behaviour group therapy (CBGT) for social phobia. People who met criteria for social phobia were randomly allocated to either an immediate treatment condition or a waiting list control (WLC). All participants completed self-report measures of social anxiety, depression, and anxiety sensitivity, a verbal dot probe and a facial dot-probe task before and after eight weeks of standard CBGT was undertaken by the treatment group. On the first measurement occasion the two groups had similar scores on all measures. On the second measurement occasion the self-report scores for the CBGT group were lower than those of the WLC group. Performance on the dot-probe tasks for the CBGT group had also changed. The treatment group appeared to direct their attention away from social threat words and threatening faces after CBGT.     

Fearful faces drive gaze‐cueing and threat bias effects in children on the lookout for danger

Most developmental studies of face emotion processing show faces in isolation, in the absence of any broader context. Here we investigate two types of interactions between expression and threat contexts. First, in adults, following of another person's direction of social attention is increased when that person shows fear and the context requires vigilance for danger. We investigate whether this also occurs in children. Using a Posner‐style eye‐gaze cueing paradigm, we tested whether children would show greater gaze‐cueing from fearful than happy expressions when the task was to be vigilant for possible dangerous animals. Testing across the 8–12‐year‐old age range, we found this fear priority effect was absent in the youngest children but developed to reach adult levels in the oldest children. However, even the oldest children were unable to sustain fear‐prioritization when the onset of the target was delayed. Second, we addressed the development of ‘threat bias’ – namely faster identification of dangerous animals than safe animals – in the social context provided by expressive faces. In our non‐anxious samples (i.e. with typical‐population levels of anxiety), adults showed a threat bias regardless of the expression or looking direction of the just‐seen cue face whereas 8–12‐year‐olds only showed a threat bias when the just‐seen cue face displayed fear. Overall, the results argue that some, but not all, aspects of expression–context interactions are mature by 12 years of age.     

Effects of threat cues on attentional shifting, disengagement and response slowing in anxious individuals

According to cognitive models of anxiety, attentional biases for threat may cause or maintain anxiety states. Previous research using spatial cueing tasks has been interpreted in terms of difficulty in disengaging attention from threat in anxious individuals, as indicated by contrasts of response times (RTs) from threat cue versus neutral cue trials. However, on spatial cueing tasks, differences in RT between threat cue and neutral cue trials may stem from a slowing effect of threat on RT, as well as effects on allocation of visuospatial attention. The present study examined the effects of threat cues on both attentional cueing and response slowing. High and low anxious individuals completed a central cue task, which assessed threat-related response slowing, and a spatial cueing task, which assessed attentional biases for angry, happy and neutral faces. Results indicated that interpretation of the anxiety-related bias for threat depended on whether the effect of response slowing was taken into account. The study illustrates an important problem in using the modified spatial cueing task to assess components of threat-related attentional bias. As this experimental method may reflect both threat-related attentional cueing and response slowing effects, it cannot be assumed to provide pure measures of shift or disengagement components of attention bias.     

Internet-delivered assessment and manipulation of anxiety-linked attentional bias: Validation of a free-access attentional probe software package

It recently has been established within the laboratory that the attentional probe methodology not only can sensitively assess the threat attentional bias associated with anxiety vulnerability, but also can be configured to yield training tasks capable of modifying emotional vulnerability by manipulating such attentional selectivity. In order to appraise and exploit the potential practical applications of such procedures, it is desirable that clinical investigators without specialist equipment should become able to deliver such tasks within field settings. The present research program involved development of a fully customizable attentional probe software package, that delivers assessment and training versions of the probe task across the Internet. Two experimental studies served to validate the assessment and training efficacy of resulting probe task variants, completed remotely by GAD sufferers and nonclinical populations using their own computers. We advise fellow researchers how to freely download this software package for use within their own investigations.     

Limited generalisation of changes in attentional bias following attentional bias modification with the visual probe task

Although attentional bias modification (ABM) can change anxiety, recent studies failed to replicate such effects, possibly because the visual probe ABM failed to induce changes in attentional bias (AB). We investigated whether visual probe ABM generalised to different measures of AB besides the visual probe task (VPT), and thus whether ABM genuinely changes attentional processing. We trained participants (N?=?60) to either attend towards or away from angry facial expressions, and we examined training effects on the dot probe task, the exogenous cueing task, and the visual search task. We found a small change in AB in the VPT, but this effect did not transfer to the exogenous cueing task or the visual search task. Our study shows that ABM does not necessarily lead to generalised effects on AB. This finding can be explained by the poor psychometric properties of the AB measures.     

Attentional bias to respiratory- and anxiety-related threat in children with asthma

This study investigated attentional biases in children with asthma. The study aimed at testing whether children with asthma are vigilant to asthma and/or anxiety cues. Thirty-six children (18 with asthma and 18 healthy controls) aged 9–12 completed a computerised dot probe task designed to measure attentional bias to three different categories of words: asthma, anxiety symptom and general negative emotion. Main caregiver anxiety was also assessed, as was frequency of inhaler use for those with asthma. Children with asthma showed an attentional bias towards asthma words but not anxiety or general negative emotion words. Children without asthma showed no significant attentional biases to any word categories. Caregiver anxiety was correlated with asthma word attentional bias in the asthma group. The findings indicate that attentional bias is present in children with asthma. Further research is required to ascertain if this exacerbates or maintains health-related problems.