Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: A meta-analytic study.

Abstract

This meta-analysis of 172 studies (N = 2,263 anxious,N = 1,768 nonanxious) examined the boundary conditions of threat-related attentional biases in anxiety. Overall, the results show that the bias is reliably demonstrated with different experimental paradigms and under a variety of experimental conditions, but that it is only an effect size of d = 0.45. Although processes requiring conscious perception of threat contribute to the bias, a significant bias is also observed with stimuli outside awareness. The bias is of comparable magnitude across different types of anxious populations (individuals with different clinical disorders, high-anxious nonclinical individuals, anxious children and adults) and is not observed in nonanxious individuals. Empirical and clinical implications as well as future directions for research are discussed.

Common regions of dorsal anterior cingulate and prefrontal–parietal cortices provide attentional control of distracters varying in emotionality and visibility

“…Of course, many emotional interference paradigms have not reported significant behavioral interference by emotional distracters. Thus, two reviews of the emotional Stroop literature report that significant emotional interference is only shown by clinical populations, not by healthy comparison individuals (Bar-Haim et al, 2007;Williams et al, 1996). Indeed, there have been suggestions that distracters will only cause interference in emotional Stroop paradigms if they are response competitors for the target words (Algom et al, 2004;cf.…”

“…Distracters immediately preceding target stimuli detrimentally impact the processing of the target stimuli (Broadbent & Broadbent, 1987). Indeed, while emotional distracters presented simultaneously with task relevant stimuli cause interference infrequently (Bar-Haim et al, 2007;Williams et al, 1996; though see, Erthal et al, 2005;Harris & Pashler, 2004;Okon-Singer et al, 2007). However, when emotional distracters and the target stimuli are presently serially in a rapid visual stream, interference is frequently reported ,Mitchell et al, 2006Strange et al, 2003).…”

Affective primes suppress attention bias to threat in socially anxious individuals

“…The mechanisms underlying the fear system serve a normative function, allowing individuals to rapidly detect threat in the environment and appropriately respond to the threat (Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2007;Öhman, 2005). Hypervigilant processing of threat, a heightened tendency to direct attention preferentially to threatening stimuli is often found in anxious individuals (Mathews & MacLeod, 1985;MacLeod, Mathews, & Tata, 1986;Mogg, Mathews, & Eysenck, 1992;Mathews, Mackintosh, & Fulcher, 1997).…”

“…Hypervigilant processing of threat, a heightened tendency to direct attention preferentially to threatening stimuli is often found in anxious individuals (Mathews & MacLeod, 1985;MacLeod, Mathews, & Tata, 1986;Mogg, Mathews, & Eysenck, 1992;Mathews, Mackintosh, & Fulcher, 1997). This attention bias to threat has been shown in both clinically and nonclinically anxious individuals, in a wide variety of tasks and may be involved in both the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders (Bar-Haim et al, 2007).…”

Different patterns of attentional bias in antenatal and postpartum depression

“…Furthermore, no main effect of comorbid anxiety disorder was noted. However, regarding the participants who suffered from comorbid anxiety, it should be stressed that the Stroop task employed in this study was not designed to specifically capture the attentional bias to threat, which characterizes anxiety disorders (Bar‐Haim et al., 2007). Clearly, our findings add to the growing literature suggesting that postpartum depression not only is characterized by time of onset, by demonstrating that these women do not display one of the cognitive alterations typical of depression, that is, attentional bias to negative stimuli.…”