Selective attention to threat in childhood anxiety: evidence
from visual probe paradigms
Selective attention to threat in childhood anxiety: evidence
from visual probe paradigms
Visual probe tasks continue to show promise as a tool with which to clarify biases
in selective attention to threat in child and adolescent anxiety. Research to date has
revealed considerable evidence of greater vigilance to lexical and pictorial threat
(e.g. affective images and emotional facial expressions) in anxious children, with
evidence of avoidance more likely in children who have experienced extreme levels
of threat (physical abuse) and/or are tested in potentially anxiogenic environments
[i.e. withinmagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner].While evidence in anxious
children is broadly consistent with findings in adult samples and appears consistent
with predictions from cognitive models of threat processing in anxiety, future
studies need to clarify the development, component processes and time course of
attentional bias in child and adolescent populations. To this end, studies in children
should me mindful of developments in the adult literature, particularly regarding
the psychonomics of visual probe indices of selective attention.
Mechanisms that underlie the development and regulation of attentional bias
to threat throughout childhood remain unclear, and longitudinal studies are
necessary to test predictions from original developmental models and extend
promising initial evidence that supports verbal learning pathways to cognitive
bias. In doing so, interactions between environmental and genetic risk factors that
modulate neural and cognitive mechanisms that underlie bias in selective attention
should be explored.
The clinical utility of attention retraining techniques for child and adolescent
anxiety has yet to be realized; however, evidence from visual probe training
paradigms in adult anxiety and initial findings in children identify attentional bias
as a mechanism through which anxiety may emerge and resolve.
Convergent evidence from concurrent eye tracking and event-related potentials
will help clarify the time course of attention allocation to threat in children,
particularly younger children forwhommanualRTdata alonemay prove insensitive
to individual differences, while continued integration of visual probe paradigms
with functional imaging (e.g. fMRI) techniques will further delineate the neural
structures and functional connectivity involved in the activation and control of selective attention to threat. This data should inform recent connectionist network
models of attentional bias within visual probe tasks (e.g. Frewen et al., 2008) with
a view to providing biologically plausible dynamic models of selective attention to
threat and its development
childhood, anxiety, attention
9780470998199
77-109
Garner, Matthew
3221c5b3-b951-4fec-b456-ec449e4ce072
April 2010
Garner, Matthew
3221c5b3-b951-4fec-b456-ec449e4ce072
Garner, Matthew
(2010)
Selective attention to threat in childhood anxiety: evidence
from visual probe paradigms.
In,
Hadwin, Julie A. and Field, Andy P.
(eds.)
Information Processing Biases and Anxiety: A Developmental Perspective.
Chichester, UK.
Wiley, .
Record type:
Book Section
Abstract
Visual probe tasks continue to show promise as a tool with which to clarify biases
in selective attention to threat in child and adolescent anxiety. Research to date has
revealed considerable evidence of greater vigilance to lexical and pictorial threat
(e.g. affective images and emotional facial expressions) in anxious children, with
evidence of avoidance more likely in children who have experienced extreme levels
of threat (physical abuse) and/or are tested in potentially anxiogenic environments
[i.e. withinmagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner].While evidence in anxious
children is broadly consistent with findings in adult samples and appears consistent
with predictions from cognitive models of threat processing in anxiety, future
studies need to clarify the development, component processes and time course of
attentional bias in child and adolescent populations. To this end, studies in children
should me mindful of developments in the adult literature, particularly regarding
the psychonomics of visual probe indices of selective attention.
Mechanisms that underlie the development and regulation of attentional bias
to threat throughout childhood remain unclear, and longitudinal studies are
necessary to test predictions from original developmental models and extend
promising initial evidence that supports verbal learning pathways to cognitive
bias. In doing so, interactions between environmental and genetic risk factors that
modulate neural and cognitive mechanisms that underlie bias in selective attention
should be explored.
The clinical utility of attention retraining techniques for child and adolescent
anxiety has yet to be realized; however, evidence from visual probe training
paradigms in adult anxiety and initial findings in children identify attentional bias
as a mechanism through which anxiety may emerge and resolve.
Convergent evidence from concurrent eye tracking and event-related potentials
will help clarify the time course of attention allocation to threat in children,
particularly younger children forwhommanualRTdata alonemay prove insensitive
to individual differences, while continued integration of visual probe paradigms
with functional imaging (e.g. fMRI) techniques will further delineate the neural
structures and functional connectivity involved in the activation and control of selective attention to threat. This data should inform recent connectionist network
models of attentional bias within visual probe tasks (e.g. Frewen et al., 2008) with
a view to providing biologically plausible dynamic models of selective attention to
threat and its development
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More information
Published date: April 2010
Keywords:
childhood, anxiety, attention
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 72188
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/72188
ISBN: 9780470998199
PURE UUID: f340062b-5fbc-4833-9659-3d7cd2f443d7
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Date deposited: 15 Mar 2010
Last modified: 10 Aug 2023 01:36
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Contributors
Editor:
Julie A. Hadwin
Editor:
Andy P. Field
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