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The influence of emotional stimuli on attention orienting and inhibitory control in pediatric anxiety

The influence of emotional stimuli on attention orienting and inhibitory control in pediatric anxiety
The influence of emotional stimuli on attention orienting and inhibitory control in pediatric anxiety
Background: Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent in children and adolescents, and are associated with aberrant emotion-related attention orienting and inhibitory control. While recent studies conducted with high-trait anxious adults have employed novel emotion-modified antisaccade tasks to examine the influence of emotional information on orienting and inhibition, similar studies have yet to be conducted in youths.

Methods: Participants were 22 children/adolescents diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and 22 age-matched healthy comparison youths. Participants completed an emotion-modified antisaccade task that was similar to those used in studies of high-trait anxious adults. This task probed the influence of abruptly appearing neutral, happy, angry, or fear stimuli on orienting (prosaccade) or inhibitory (antisaccade) responses.

Results: Anxious compared to healthy children showed facilitated orienting toward angry stimuli. With respect to inhibitory processes, threat-related information improved antisaccade accuracy in healthy but not anxious youth. These findings were not linked to individual levels of reported anxiety or specific anxiety disorders.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that anxious relative to healthy children manifest enhanced orienting toward threat-related stimuli. In addition, the current findings suggest that threat may modulate inhibitory control during adolescent development.
0021-9630
856-863
Mueller, Sven
8da50772-4c35-48b1-b47a-cc2a822671a6
Hardin, Michael
21d453e9-443f-419b-96fd-3c13e735a884
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Benson, Valerie
4827cede-6668-4e3d-bded-ade4cd5e5db5
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514
Reinholdt-Dunne, Marie Louise
89d8f25c-6a92-43bd-b2ab-a4d11422f929
Liversedge, Simon P.
3ebda3f3-d930-4f89-85d5-5654d8fe7dee
Pine, Daniel
8b0b5097-d24a-491d-a27d-abbfdf812e80
Ernst, Monique
3906e5f6-2105-48af-9b78-a00482acac1c
Mueller, Sven
8da50772-4c35-48b1-b47a-cc2a822671a6
Hardin, Michael
21d453e9-443f-419b-96fd-3c13e735a884
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Benson, Valerie
4827cede-6668-4e3d-bded-ade4cd5e5db5
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514
Reinholdt-Dunne, Marie Louise
89d8f25c-6a92-43bd-b2ab-a4d11422f929
Liversedge, Simon P.
3ebda3f3-d930-4f89-85d5-5654d8fe7dee
Pine, Daniel
8b0b5097-d24a-491d-a27d-abbfdf812e80
Ernst, Monique
3906e5f6-2105-48af-9b78-a00482acac1c

Mueller, Sven, Hardin, Michael, Mogg, Karin, Benson, Valerie, Bradley, Brendan P., Reinholdt-Dunne, Marie Louise, Liversedge, Simon P., Pine, Daniel and Ernst, Monique (2012) The influence of emotional stimuli on attention orienting and inhibitory control in pediatric anxiety. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53 (8), 856-863. (doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02541.x).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Background: Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent in children and adolescents, and are associated with aberrant emotion-related attention orienting and inhibitory control. While recent studies conducted with high-trait anxious adults have employed novel emotion-modified antisaccade tasks to examine the influence of emotional information on orienting and inhibition, similar studies have yet to be conducted in youths.

Methods: Participants were 22 children/adolescents diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and 22 age-matched healthy comparison youths. Participants completed an emotion-modified antisaccade task that was similar to those used in studies of high-trait anxious adults. This task probed the influence of abruptly appearing neutral, happy, angry, or fear stimuli on orienting (prosaccade) or inhibitory (antisaccade) responses.

Results: Anxious compared to healthy children showed facilitated orienting toward angry stimuli. With respect to inhibitory processes, threat-related information improved antisaccade accuracy in healthy but not anxious youth. These findings were not linked to individual levels of reported anxiety or specific anxiety disorders.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that anxious relative to healthy children manifest enhanced orienting toward threat-related stimuli. In addition, the current findings suggest that threat may modulate inhibitory control during adolescent development.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 25 January 2012
e-pub ahead of print date: 12 March 2012
Published date: August 2012
Organisations: Clinical Neuroscience

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 209045
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/209045
ISSN: 0021-9630
PURE UUID: 7602653e-87b0-4c98-88fa-f917281c470d
ORCID for Brendan P. Bradley: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2801-4271

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 25 Jan 2012 12:41
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:08

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Contributors

Author: Sven Mueller
Author: Michael Hardin
Author: Karin Mogg
Author: Valerie Benson
Author: Marie Louise Reinholdt-Dunne
Author: Simon P. Liversedge
Author: Daniel Pine
Author: Monique Ernst

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