Specificity and generalization of attentional bias in sexual trauma victims suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder

Fleurkens, Pascal; Rinck, Mike; Minnen, Agnes van

doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2011.03.014

Cited by 32 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(40 reference statements)

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“…Furthermore, measures of trauma-related Stroop interference have been shown to positively correlate with PTSD symptom severity (McNally et al, 1990; Cassiday et al, 1992; Paunovic et al, 2002; Fleurkens et al, 2011). Stroop interference in PTSD appears to be specific to trauma-related material, although some studies have reported interference to other types of emotional stimuli (Litz et al, 1996; Paunovic et al, 2002).…”

Section: Emotional Effects On Cognitive Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion and cognition interactions in PTSD: a review of neurocognitive and neuroimaging studies

Hayes

VanElzakker

Shin

2012

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

291

214

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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric syndrome that develops after exposure to terrifying and life-threatening events including warfare, motor-vehicle accidents, and physical and sexual assault. The emotional experience of psychological trauma can have long-term cognitive effects. The hallmark symptoms of PTSD involve alterations to cognitive processes such as memory, attention, planning, and problem solving, underscoring the detrimental impact that negative emotionality has on cognitive functioning. As such, an important challenge for PTSD researchers and treatment providers is to understand the dynamic interplay between emotion and cognition. Contemporary cognitive models of PTSD theorize that a preponderance of information processing resources are allocated toward threat detection and interpretation of innocuous stimuli as threatening, narrowing one's attentional focus at the expense of other cognitive operations. Decades of research have shown support for these cognitive models of PTSD using a variety of tasks and methodological approaches. The primary goal of this review is to summarize the latest neurocognitive and neuroimaging research of emotion-cognition interactions in PTSD. To directly assess the influence of emotion on cognition and vice versa, the studies reviewed employed challenge tasks that included both cognitive and emotional components. The findings provide evidence for memory and attention deficits in PTSD that are often associated with changes in functional brain activity. The results are reviewed to provide future directions for research that may direct better and more effective treatments for PTSD.

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Section: Emotional Effects On Cognitive Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion and cognition interactions in PTSD: a review of neurocognitive and neuroimaging studies

Hayes

VanElzakker

Shin

2012

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

291

214

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Also, in VST reaction times depend on the number and location of distracters which further burdens the interpretation and comparability of the results (e.g., Ohman et al, 2001). Second, evidence is yet inconclusive with regard to the specificity of attentional bias components in PTSD (e.g., Fleurkens et al, 2011). On the one hand, it remains unclear, to which extent each attentional bias component is specific for trauma-related cues (''pathology congruent'', for a review see Williams et al (1997)) or generalizes to other emotional material (e.g., general threat-, depression-related, i.e., ''stimulus specifity'').…”

Section: Dot-probe and Visual Search Tasks In Attentional Bias Researmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional bias for affective visual stimuli in posttraumatic stress disorder and the role of depression

Hauschildt

Wittekind

Moritz

et al. 2013

Psychiatry Research

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“…Participants were presented with an arrow Flanker task (Ridderinkhof et al, 1999) and were asked 8 to identify whether the centrally presented arrow was pointing to the left or to the right while 9 ignoring two adjacent arrows on either side, pointing in the same (congruent trial) or in the 10 opposite direction (incongruent trials). Participants were asked to make a decision by pressing 11 either the right or left button.…”

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confidence: 99%

Content specificity of attentional bias to threat in post-traumatic stress disorder

Zinchenko

Al-Amin

Alam

et al. 2017

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

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Background Attentional bias to affective information and reduced cognitive control may maintain the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and impair cognitive functioning. However, the role of content specificity of affective stimuli (e.g., trauma-related, emotional trauma-unrelated) in the observed attentional bias and cognitive control is less clear, as this has not been tested simultaneously before. Therefore, we examined the content specificity of attentional bias to threat in PTSD. Methods PTSD participants (survivors of a multistory factory collapse, n = 30) and matched controls (n = 30) performed an Eriksen Flanker task. They identified the direction of a centrally presented target arrow, which was flanked by several task-irrelevant distractor arrows pointed to the same (congruent) or opposite direction (incongruent). Additionally, participants were presented with a picture of a face (neutral, emotional) or building (neutral = normal, emotional = collapsed multistory factory) as a task-irrelevant background image. Results We found that PTSD participants produced overall larger conflict effects and longer reaction times (RT) to emotional than to neutral stimuli relative to their healthy counterparts. Moreover, PTSD, but not healthy participants showed a stimulus specific dissociation in processing emotional stimuli. Emotional faces elicited longer RTs compared to neutral faces, while emotional buildings elicited faster responses, compared to neutral buildings. Conclusions PTSD patients show a content-sensitive attentional bias to emotional information and impaired cognitive control

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Specificity and generalization of attentional bias in sexual trauma victims suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder

Cited by 32 publications

References 31 publications

Emotion and cognition interactions in PTSD: a review of neurocognitive and neuroimaging studies

Emotion and cognition interactions in PTSD: a review of neurocognitive and neuroimaging studies

Attentional bias for affective visual stimuli in posttraumatic stress disorder and the role of depression

Content specificity of attentional bias to threat in post-traumatic stress disorder

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