Selective processing of threat cues in panic disorder

A computerized Stroop color-naming paradigm was used to investigate attentional biases for selectively processing threat information in panic-disordered patients. Subjects named the colors of neutral words (e.g. TYPICAL), fear words (e.g. PANIC), bodily sensation words (e.g. HEARTBEAT), and catastrophe words (e.g. HEART ATTACK). To control for familiarity with threat concepts, we used clinicians who treat panic disorder as normal control subjects. In contrast to normal controls, panic patients exhibited greater Stroop interference for all threat words, especially those associated with catastrophe. Stroop interference waned during the course of the experiment, thereby indicating habituation to the semantic content of the cues. These findings suggest that panic disorder, like other anxiety disorders, is associated with an attentional bias for processing threatening information.     

Selective processing of threat cues in posttraumatic stress disorder

Vietnam combat veterans with (n = 15) and without (n = 15) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) performed a modified Stroop task in which they named the colors of neutral words (e.g., INPUT), positive words (e.g., LOVE), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) words (e.g., GERMS), and PTSD words (e.g., BODYBAGS). In contrast to normal controls, PTSD patients took significantly longer to color-name PTSD words than to color-name neutral, OCD, and positive words. Because Stroop interference reflects involuntary semantic activation, it may provide a quantitative measure of intrusive cognitive activity--the hallmark symptom of PTSD.     

Attentional bias to threat in clinical anxiety states

Abstract

Attentional responses to threat stimuli were assessed in anxious patients, normal controls, and subjects who had recovered from a clinical anxiety state. The main aims of the study were: (1) to replicate MacLeod, Mathews, and Tata's (1986) finding of an attentional bias to threat in currently anxious patients compared with normal control subjects; (2) to assess whether the bias is related to the predominant worries of anxious patients; and (3) to investigate whether the bias is present in recovered anxious patients. The original finding of an anxiety-related attentional bias was replicated. The results indicated that the extent to which anxious patients selectively attended to social threat words was associated with the seventy of their social worries. The attentional responses of the recovered anxious group were not significantly differentiated from those of the currently anxious or normal control groups.     

Selective processing of masked and unmasked verbal threat material in anxiety: Influence of an immediate acute stressor

Attentional biases for threat were investigated using a computerised version of the emotional Stroop task. The study examined the influence of state and trait anxiety by employing a student sample assigned to high trait anxious (HTA; n=32) or low trait anxious (LTA; n=32) groups on the basis of questionnaire scores, and state anxiety was manipulated within participants through the threat of electric shock. Threatening words that were either unrelated (e.g., cancer, danger) or related to the threat of shock (e.g., electrocute, shock) were presented to participants both within and outside of awareness. In the latter condition a backward masking procedure was used to prevent awareness and exposure thresholds between the target and mask were individually set for each participant. For unmasked trials the HTA group showed significant interference in colour naming for all threat words relative to control words when performing under the threat of shock, but not in the shock safe condition. For the masked trials, despite chance performance in being able to identify the lexical status of the items, HTA participants showed facilitated colour naming for all threat words relative to control items when performing under threat of shock, but this effect was not evident in the shock safe condition. Neither valence of the items nor the threat of shock influenced colour naming latencies in either exposure mode for the LTA group.     

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.     

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.     

Selective attention to threat: A test of two cognitive models of anxiety

Two experiments evaluated differential predictions from two cognitive formulations of anxiety. According to one view, attentional biases for threat reflect vulnerability to anxiety; and as threat inputs increase, high trait anxious individuals should become more vigilant, and low trait individuals more avoidant, of threat (Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1988, 1997). However, according to a “cognitive-motivational” view, trait anxiety influences the appraisal of stimulus threat value, rather than the direction of attentional bias, and both high and low trait anxious individuals should exhibit greater vigilance for high rather than mild threat stimuli (Mogg & Bradley, 1998). To test these predictions, two experiments examined the effect of manipulating stimulus threat value on the direction of attentional bias. The stimuli included high threat and mild threat pictorial scenes presented in a probe detection task. Results from both studies indicated a significant main effect of stimulus threat value on attentional bias, as there was increased vigilance or reduced avoidance of threat, as threat value increased. This effect was found even within low trait anxious individuals, consistent with the “cognitive-motivational” view. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.     

The influence of anxiety on processing capacity for threat detection

In the present study, we explored the proposition that an individual’s capacity for threat detection is related to his or her trait anxiety. Using a redundant signals paradigm with concurrent measurements of reaction times and eye movements, participants indicated the presence or absence of an emotional target face (angry or happy) in displays containing no targets, one target, or two targets. We used estimates of the orderings on the hazard functions of the RT distributions as measures of processing capacity (Townsend & Ashby, 1978; Wenger & Gibson, Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 30,708–719, 2004) to assess whether self-reported anxiety and the affective state of the face interacted with the level of perceptual load (i.e., the number of targets). Results indicated that anxiety was associated with fewer eye movements and increased processing capacity to detect multiple (vs. single) threatening faces. The data are consistent with anxiety influencing threat detection via a broadly tuned attentional mechanism (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, Emotion, 7,336–353, 2007).     

Effects of stress and anxiety on the processing of threat stimuli

Two experiments extended the work of MacLeod and Mathews (1988) and examined whether a cognitive bias for threat information is a function of state or trait anxiety. Color-naming and attention deployment tasks were used to assess the effects of a stress manipulation procedure on attentional responses in high and low trait anxious subjects. Subjects under high stress selectively allocated processing resources toward threat stimuli, irrespective of their trait anxiety level. There was no consistent evidence of a cognitive bias associated with trait anxiety, and the effect of the stress manipulation did not appear to be mediated by state anxiety. It was suggested that trait factors do not modify attentional biases associated with acute stress, but may influence such biases when stress is prolonged.     

海洛因戒治者对疼痛线索的选择性注意加工偏向

研究采用点探测范式,以疼痛线索(感觉疼痛词、情感疼痛词和健康灾难词)和中性线索(中性词)为实验材料,考察接受美沙酮维持治疗的海洛因戒治者对疼痛线索的视觉选择性注意偏向。结果表明:海洛因戒治者对疼痛线索的注意偏向具有普遍性,即对感觉疼痛词、情感疼痛词和健康灾难词等三类疼痛线索均存在注意回避偏向,尤其对健康灾难词的注意回避程度最高;海洛因戒治者还对感觉疼痛词和情感疼痛词存在注意脱离易化倾向。本研究对于有针对性的开展注意偏向矫正以干预疼痛,从而辅助美沙酮的治疗效果、维持患者的戒断状态、降低其复吸风险具有重要意义。     

The effect of induced anxiety on cognition: threat of shock enhances aversive processing in healthy individuals

Individuals with anxiety disorders demonstrate altered cognitive performance including (1) cognitive biases towards negative stimuli (affective biases) and (2) increased cognitive rigidity (e.g., impaired conflict adaptation) on affective Stroop tasks. Threat of electric shock is frequently used to induce anxiety in healthy individuals, but the extent to which this manipulation mimics the cognitive impairment seen in anxiety disorders is unclear. In this study, 31 healthy individuals completed an affective Stroop task under safe and threat-of-shock conditions. We showed that threat (1) enhanced aversive processing and abolished a positive affective bias but (2) had no effect on conflict adaptation. Threat of shock thus partially models the effects of anxiety disorders on affective Stroop tasks. We suggest that the affective state of anxiety—which is common to both threat and anxiety disorders—modulates the neural inhibition of subcortical aversive processing, whilst pathologies unique to anxiety disorders modulate conflict adaptation.     

Early vigilance and late avoidance of threat processing: Repressive coping versus low/high anxiety

The time course of a bias in predicting danger as a function of a repressive coping style was examined. The participants belonged to repressor, low - anxious, or high - anxious groups. They read context sentences predictive of threat or nonthreat event outcomes, followed by target words for rapid naming representing the outcomes. The interval between context and target word was 50 ms (Experiment 1), 550 ms (Experiment 2), or 1050 ms (Experiments 3 and 4). There was bias for naming words confirming threatening outcomes: (a) for repressors in the 550-ms delay condition; and (b) for high - anxiety participants in the 1050-ms delay condition. Repressive coping facilitated early processing of threat, but inhibited late processing, whereas high anxiety was characterised by sustained vigilance for threat. There were clear differences in threat processing by repressors and the low - anxious participants     

Trait anxiety modulates supraliminal and subliminal threat: Brain potential evidence for early and late processing influences

Analysis of threat is thought to involve a “quick and dirty” stage in conjunction with slower processing that is more complete. We investigated both types of threat analysis by recording brain potentials in response to threat and neutral words. Personality testing was used to identify participants who were either high or low in trait anxiety (TA). An observed enhancement of occipital P1 potentials to threat words during an emotional Stroop task was interpreted as a signal of unconscious processing, since it was early, independent of whether word exposure was subliminal or supraliminal, and more prominent the higher the level of TA. Later positive potentials were also enhanced for threat versus neutral words, but the amplitude enhancement increased with higher TA only in the subliminal condition. These results suggest that unconscious analysis of threat is intensified in those prone to anxiety, as is a later stage of threat processing subject to dynamic interactions between automatic and strategic influences.     

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.     

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.     

Attentive processing of threat and adult attachment: a dot-probe study

We examined selective attention to threat stimuli as a function of individual differences in adult attachment. Participants completed a dot-probe task in which a general threat word, attachment-related threat word, general positive or attachment-related positive word was presented together with a neutral word. Results showed that attachment anxiety and avoidance were associated with an attentional bias away from attachment threat words. This attentional avoidance effect was best predicted by the interaction between attachment anxiety and avoidance and not by their unique main effects. The findings are discussed in terms of attachment theory and its relation to attentional biases observed in psychopathology.     

Test anxiety and evaluation threat: Children's behavior in the classroom

Children differing in test anxiety level were observed in two art classes, one immediately preceding a classroom examination, the other when no examination was expected. The observational analyses indicated the following: (a) When an examination was expected there were general increases both in children's task orientation and in their concern with other's evaluations, and a decrease in general activity level. It was suggested that future research examine the effects of additional situational variables on children's classroom behaviors, (b) Highly test-anxious children were generally hardworking and inactive. They reacted to examination expectancy with a decrease in task orientation, reduction in communications, and attentional constriction. Less anxious children reacted to examination expectancy by working harder, eliminating task-irrelevant behaviors, and seeking feedback. These results were interpreted as supporting a cognitive theory of test anxiety.This research was supported by Canada Council Grant No. S71-0272.