Anxiety and the Processing of Emotionally Threatening Stimuli: Distinctive Patterns of Selective Attention among High- and Low-Test-Anxious Children

Abstract

There is substantial evidence that clinically referred and nonreferred high-anxious adults selectively shift attention toward threatening stimuli. In contrast, low-anxious adults shift attention away from threatening stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that clinically referred anxious children also selectively attend to threatening information. The present study tested for the presence of such a bias in a nonreferred sample of high-anxious children and also included the first adequate test for an attentional bias away from threat among low-anxious children. 20 high- and 20 low-test-anxious children, 11-14 years of age, completed a task in which visual attention was indexed by latency to detect probes following emotionally threatening and neutral words. Results supported the predicted attentional bias toward threat cues among high-test-anxious children. Unexpectedly, the predicted attentional bias away from threat cues was found only among low-test-anxious boys. Low-test-anxious girls attended equally to threatening and neutral words. In sum, selective attention mechanisms influence children's processing of threatening information and may play a role in the regulation and dysregulation of childhood anxiety.

Attentional Biases in Children: Implications for Treatment

“…When clinically anxious children were compared with non-anxious children, anxious children displayed evidence of attentional bias towards threat-related words. Similar results have been found among anxious children in other studies as well (e.g., Vasey, El-Hag and Daleiden, 1996).…”

Selective Attention to Threat in Childhood Anxiety: Evidence from Visual Probe Paradigms

“…Enhanced vigilance to physical and social threat words (relative to neutral words) has been observed in clinically anxious children (Vasey et al, 1995;Taghavi et al, 1999;Dalgleish et al, 2001;Dalgleish et al, 2003) and those with high levels of test anxiety (Vasey, Elhag and Daleiden, 1996) and to emotional words in children with high levels of anxiety sensitivity (Hunt, Keogh and French, 2007). While studies differ with respect to whether attentional bias to threat in anxiety is inferred from between-group or within-group differences, findings in general concur irrespective of whether children are explicitly asked to read the top word out loud (e.g.…”

“…Nevertheless, there is some initial (a posteriori) evidence that girls might more likely show vigilance for threat stimuli (Waters, Lipp and Spence, 2004, Experiment 1;Ehrenreich et al, 1998) and boys avoidance (Vasey, Elhag and Daleiden, 1996;Ehrenreich et al, 1998), findings that perhaps suggest one mechanism that may contribute to the greater prevalence of anxiety in females than males.…”

Cognitive Biases in Childhood Anxiety, Depression, and Aggression: Are They Pervasive or Specific?

“…Attention allocation was assessed by a shortened version of the dot probe task (Vasey, El-Hag, & Daleiden, 1996), which involves the presentation of two words, one above the other, on a computer screen. Following the disappearance of the words, a dot probe appears in the location of one of the words.…”