Specificity of attentional bias in panic disorder and social phobia

Maidenberg, Emanuel; Chen, Eric; Craske, Michelle G.; Bohn, Paul W.; Bystritsky, Alexander

doi:10.1016/s0887-6185(96)00028-x

Cited by 100 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In contrast to previous studies using social threat words (Becker et al, 2001;Hope et al, 1990;Lundh & Ö st, 1996;Maidenberg et al, 1996;Mattia et al, 1993;Spector et al, 2003) the present study found no emotional Stroop interference in social phobic individuals when subjects were requested to colour-name angry faces. This finding is in accordance with a study by , who also observed no emotional interference in a modified emotional Stroop paradigm where subjects had to identify the gender of angry faces in photographic images.…”

Section: Behavioural Datacontrasting

confidence: 99%

Event-related potentials to schematic faces in social phobia

Kolassa

Musial

et al. 2007

Cognition & Emotion

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Social phobia has been associated with an attentional bias for angry faces. This study aimed at further characterising this attentional bias by investigating reaction times, heart rates, and ERPs while social phobics, spider phobics, and controls identified either the colour or the emotional quality of angry, happy, or neutral schematic faces. The emotional expression of angry faces did not interfere with the processing of their colour in social phobics, and heart rate, N170 amplitude and parietal late positive potentials (LPPs) of these subjects were also no different from those of non phobic subjects. However, social phobics showed generally larger P1 amplitudes than non phobic controls with spider phobic subjects in between. No general threat advantage for angry faces was found. All groups identified neutral schematic faces faster and showed larger late positive amplitudes to neutral than to emotional faces. Furthermore, in all groups the N170 was modulated by the emotional quality of faces. This effect was most pronounced in the emotion identification task.With a life-time prevalence rate of about 13% (see Furmark, 2002;Westenberg, & Liebowitz, 2004, for reviews), social phobia is one of the most frequent phobic disorders. Individuals with social phobia fear embarrassment, humiliation, or negative evaluation in social interaction and performance situations. Approval or disapproval is most directly signalled by facial expressions. For example, during dyadic interaction the display of anger in the face of one of the interaction partners is a common Correspondence should be addressed to: Iris Tatjana

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Section: Behavioural Datacontrasting

confidence: 99%

Event-related potentials to schematic faces in social phobia

Kolassa

Musial

et al. 2007

Cognition & Emotion

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“…Emotional Stroop interference reported in social phobics when color naming social threat words (Becker et al, 2001;Hope et al, 1990;Lundh and Öst, 1996;Maidenberg et al, 1996;Mattia et al, 1993;Spector et al, 2003) was not replicated with angry faces. Yet, present results are in line with a recent study by Kolassa et al (2005), who also found no emotional Stroop interference in spider phobic subjects when color naming spider pictures.…”

Section: Absence Of Emotional Stroop Interference In Social Phobic Sumentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The difference in color naming latencies between anxiety related and neutral stimuli the emotional Stroop effect provides a measure of the attentional bias towards emotional stimuli. Several studies using emotional Stroop tasks found evidence for an attentional bias to social threat words in patients with social phobia (Becker et al, 2001;Hope et al, 1990;Lundh and Öst, 1996;Maidenberg et al, 1996;Mattia et al, 1993;Spector et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychophysiological correlates of face processing in social phobia

2006

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Social phobia has been associated with abnormal processing of angry faces, which directly signal disapproval a situation that social phobics fear. This study investigated the electrophysiological correlates of emotional face processing in socially phobic and non phobic individuals. Subjects identified either the gender (modified emotional Stroop task) or the expression of angry, happy, or neutral faces. Social phobics showed no deviations from controls in reaction times, heart rates, P1, or P2 amplitudes in response to angry faces, although elevated FSS scores were associated with higher P1 amplitudes in social phobic persons. In addition, social phobic persons showed enhanced right temporo parietal N170 amplitudes in response to angry faces in the emotion identification task. Furthermore, higher scores on the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) were associated as a trend with larger N170 amplitudes in response to angry faces in the emotion identification task.Thus, the present results suggest that social phobics show abnormalities in the early visual processing of angry faces, as reflected by the enhanced right hemispheric N170 when the emotion of the angry face was the focus of attention, while behavioral responses and heart rates showed no evidence for preferred processing of angry facial expressions.

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“…Mismatch between the color and content of the word (e.g., the word "green" printed in red) typically results in a longer response latency, which has been typically regarded as evidence of cognitive interference. Modified versions of Stroop tests presenting emotional threat words have been used to examine attentional biases in numerous conditions, including depression (Klieger & Cordner, 1990;Segal, Truchon, Gemar, & Guirguis, 1995;Segal & Vella, 1990), panic disorder (McNally et al, 1994;McNally, Riemann, & Kim, 1990;McNally, Riemann, Louro, Lukach, & Kim, 1992), obsessive-compulsive disorder (Foa, Ilai, McCarthy, Shoyer, & Murdock, 1993;Lavy, Vanoppen, & Vandenhout, 1994), posttraumatic stress disorder (Foa, Feske, Murdock, Kozak, & Mccarthy, 1991;Kaspi, McNally, & Amir, 1995;McNally, English, & Lipke, 1993), specific phobia (Lavy, Vandenhout, & Arntz, 1993;Mathews & Sebastian, 1993), and SAD (Becker, Rinck, Margraf, & Roth, 2001;Hope, Rapee, Heimberg, & Dombeck, 1990;Lundh & Ost, 1996;Maidenberg, Chen, Craske, Bohn, & Bystritsky, 1996;Mattia, Heimberg, & Hope, 1993;McNeil et al, 1995;Spector, response latencies to threat words in contrast with non-threat words have been deemed to indicate selective attention towards the threat.…”

Section: Emotional Stroop Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In summary, the emotional Stroop paradigm has been extensively used to examine attentional biases associated with SAD. Most studies using the Stroop paradigm have shown that individuals with heightened social anxiety or SAD display longer colornaming latencies in response to social threat words (e.g., Andersson, Westoo, & Johansson, 2006;Spector, Pecknold, & Libman, 2003;Amir, Freshman, & Foa, 2002;Becker, Rinck, Margraf, & Roth, 2001;McNeil et al, 1995;Hope, Rapee, Heimberg, & Dombeck, 1990;Lundh & Ost, 1996;Maidenberg, Chen, Craske, Bohn, & Bystritsky, 1996;Mattia, Heimberg, & Hope, 1993) with very few exceptions that have revealed no or shorter response latencies (e.g., Kindt, Bogels, & Morren, 2003;Amir et al, 1996). However, as pointed out by Bogels and Mansell (2004), the specificity is questionable given some data indicating that other groups of patients also show delayed response to social threat words (e.g., Becker et al, 2001;Mathews & Macleod, 1985).…”

Section: Emotional Stroop Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional biases in social anxiety: An investigation using the inattentional blindness paradigm

Lee

Telch

2008

Behaviour Research and Therapy

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Social anxiety disorder is the third most common mental disorder with the lifetime prevalence rate of 13.3% in the US population. Typically, it causes significant impairment in a wide range of functioning and follows a chronic, unremitting course if untreated. Over the past two decades, there has been a dramatic increase in clinical research aimed at examining underlying mechanisms maintaining social anxiety.One line of research has investigated attentional biases in social anxiety, using various cognitive experiment paradigms, including the emotional Stroop and the modified dotprobe tasks. However, overall findings are equivocal about the nature of attentional biases in social anxiety and several methodological problems limit the interpretability of the data. The present study examined attentional biases associated with social anxiety using a new research paradigm in the field of anxiety disorders: the inattentional blindness paradigm. This paradigm presents a social cue in the absence of the subjects' expectation while they are engaged in a cognitively demanding task, thereby enabling the v more purely attentional aspect of information processing to be examined reducing the influence of potential response biases or effortful strategies. Two independent experiments were conducted using nonclinical student samples consisting of individuals high in social anxiety (HSAs) versus individuals low in social anxiety (LSAs) based on the static and sustained inattentional blindness tasks. Overall, results revealed that HSAs were more likely to detect or identify a socially-threatening cue, relative to LSAs; whereas LSAs were more likely to detect or identify a non-threatening social cue, relative to HSAs. These findings were observed only in the presence of a bogus-speech manipulation. These data suggest the promising utility of the inattentional blindness paradigm in investigating attentional biases in social anxiety and perhaps other psychopathological conditions. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.vi

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Specificity of attentional bias in panic disorder and social phobia

Cited by 100 publications

References 15 publications

Event-related potentials to schematic faces in social phobia

Event-related potentials to schematic faces in social phobia

Psychophysiological correlates of face processing in social phobia

Attentional biases in social anxiety: An investigation using the inattentional blindness paradigm

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