Journal
BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH AND THERAPY
Volume 47, Issue 2, Pages 128-138Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.brat.2008.10.021
Keywords
Selective attention; Emotional pictures; Disengagement; Automatic processing; Anxiety disorders; Major depression
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Although it is well established that attentional biases exist in anxious populations, the specific components Of Visual orienting towards and away from emotional stimuli are not well delineated. The present study was designed to examine these processes. We used a modified spatial cueing task to assess the speed of engagement and disengagement from supraliminal and masked pictorial Cues depicting threat, dysphoria, or neutral content in 36 clinically anxious, 41 depressed and 41 control participants. Participants were randomly assigned to a stress or neutral condition. During stress, anxious participants were slow to disengage from masked left hemifield pictures depicting threat or dysphoria, but were quick to disengage from supraliminal threat pictures. Information processing in anxious participants during stress was characterized by early selective attention of emotional stimuli, occurring prior to full conscious awareness, followed by effortfull avoidance of threat. Depressed participants were distinct from the anxious group, displaying selective attention for stimuli depicting dysphoria, but not threat, during the neutral condition. In sum, attentional biases in clinical populations are associated with difficulties in the disengagement component of visual orienting. Further, a vigilant-avoidant pattern of attentional bias may represent a Strategic attempt to compensate for the early activation of a fear response. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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