scholarly journals Faced with one’s fear: Attentional bias in anorexia nervosa and healthy individuals upon confrontation with an obese body stimulus in an eye‐tracking paradigm

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
AndreaSabrina Hartmann ◽  
Tiana Borgers ◽  
Jennifer Joanne Thomas ◽  
Claire‐Marie Giabbiconi ◽  
Silja Vocks
2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 1508
Author(s):  
Qiandong WANG ◽  
Qinggong LI ◽  
Kaikai CHEN ◽  
Genyue FU

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Mullin ◽  
Jacob B. W. Holzman ◽  
Laura Pyle ◽  
Emmaly L. Perks ◽  
Yaswanth Chintaluru ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Attentional bias to threat has been implicated as a cognitive mechanism in anxiety disorders for youth. Yet, prior studies documenting this bias have largely relied on a method with questionable reliability (i.e. dot-probe task) and small samples, few of which included adolescents. The current study sought to address such limitations by examining relations between anxiety – both clinically diagnosed and dimensionally rated – and attentional bias to threat. Methods The study included a community sample of adolescents and employed eye-tracking methodology intended to capture possible biases across the full range of both automatic (i.e. vigilance bias) and controlled attentional processes (i.e. avoidance bias, maintenance bias). We examined both dimensional anxiety (across the full sample; n = 215) and categorical anxiety in a subset case-control analysis (n = 100) as predictors of biases. Results Findings indicated that participants with an anxiety disorder oriented more slowly to angry faces than matched controls. Results did not suggest a greater likelihood of initial orienting to angry faces among our participants with anxiety disorders or those with higher dimensional ratings of anxiety. Greater anxiety severity was associated with greater dwell time to neutral faces. Conclusions This is the largest study to date examining eye-tracking metrics of attention to threat among healthy and anxious youth. Findings did not support the notion that anxiety is characterized by heightened vigilance or avoidance/maintenance of attention to threat. All effects detected were extremely small. Links between attention to threat and anxiety among adolescents may be subtle and highly dependent on experimental task dimensions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document