Implicit associations between anxiety-related symptoms and catastrophic consequences in high anxiety sensitive individuals

Anxiety sensitivity refers to the fear of anxiety-related physical sensations arising from beliefs that these sensations have harmful consequences (Reiss & McNally, 1985). The present study examined whether individuals with high (vs. low) anxiety sensitivity show stronger implicit associations in memory between anxiety-related symptoms, as opposed to neutral body parts, and harmful, as compared to harmless, consequences. A total of 22 undergraduate students (14 F, 8 M) completed the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; De Houwer, 2003). Results indicated that high anxiety sensitive individuals (n = 10) tended to implicitly associate harmful consequences with anxiety-related symptoms. Their performance was significantly faster on trials where target words related to anxiety symptoms were mapped on to the same response key as harmful consequences. No significant difference in performance was found for low anxiety sensitive individuals (n = 12) or when target words were body parts unlikely related to diseases. Between-group differences persisted after controlling for trait anxiety and history of panic attacks, but not when illness-related beliefs were introduced as a covariate. Identifying this implicit association bias provides additional empirical support for the concept of anxiety sensitivity.     

Aperture viewing : A review and a synthesis

We argue that two processes are involved in the visual perception of shapes moving behind narrow apertures. “Retinal painting” occurs when the eyes are free to pursue the moving shape and when the traverse time across the aperture is sufficiently short to allow visual persistence of the temporally successive views. When pursuit eye movements do not occur, however, the shape may still be perceived if it moves relatively slowly. The latter kind of perception does not involve seeing all the parts of the shape simultaneously (as in the case with retinal painting) but we demonstrate that shapes seen in this way have some of the same properties as conventionally presented shapes. The discussion emphasises the relevance of these findings to general problems in movement perception.