Journal
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 3, Issue 5, Pages 758-771Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/2167702614545216
Keywords
anxiety; attention; cognition and emotion; emotional processing biases; selective attention
Categories
Funding
- Oxfordshire Health Services Research Committee [782]
- Wellcome Trust [064290/Z/01/Z]
- Advanced Investigator Award from the European Research Council [324176]
- European Research Council (ERC) [324176] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
- ESRC [ES/K01031X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
A well-established literature has identified different selective attentional orienting mechanisms underlying anxietyrelated attentional bias, such as engagement and disengagement of attention. These mechanisms are thought to contribute to the onset and maintenance of anxiety disorders. However, conclusions to date have relied heavily on experimental work from subclinical samples. We therefore investigated individuals with diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), healthy volunteers, and individuals with high trait anxiety (but not meeting GAD diagnostic criteria). Across two experiments we found faster disengagement from negative (angry and fearful) faces in GAD groups, an effect opposite to that expected on the basis of the subclinical literature. Together these data challenge current assumptions that we can generalize, to those with GAD, the pattern of selective attentional orienting to threat found in subclinical groups. We suggest a decisive two-stage experiment identifying stimuli of primary salience in GAD, then using these to reexamine orienting mechanisms across groups.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available