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Selective orienting of attention to masked threat faces in social anxiety

Selective orienting of attention to masked threat faces in social anxiety
Selective orienting of attention to masked threat faces in social anxiety
The aims of the study were two-fold: to examine whether previous evidence of a pre-attentive bias for masked threat faces in anxious individuals could be replicated, and to assess the relationship between the predicted bias and measures of trait and social anxiety. Pairs of face stimuli were briefly displayed and masked in a modified version of the visual probe task. Results indicated that high anxious individuals were faster to respond to probes occurring in the spatial location of masked threat rather than neutral faces; consistent with their attention being automatically captured by sub-threshold threat cues. Furthermore, this vigilance effect for masked threat faces appeared to be primarily a function of social anxiety and social avoidance, rather than trait anxiety. It was also more apparent when threat faces were presented in the left visual field, suggestive of right hemisphere
0005-7967
1403-1414
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514

Mogg, Karin and Bradley, Brendan P. (2002) Selective orienting of attention to masked threat faces in social anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40 (12), 1403-1414. (doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(02)00017-7).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The aims of the study were two-fold: to examine whether previous evidence of a pre-attentive bias for masked threat faces in anxious individuals could be replicated, and to assess the relationship between the predicted bias and measures of trait and social anxiety. Pairs of face stimuli were briefly displayed and masked in a modified version of the visual probe task. Results indicated that high anxious individuals were faster to respond to probes occurring in the spatial location of masked threat rather than neutral faces; consistent with their attention being automatically captured by sub-threshold threat cues. Furthermore, this vigilance effect for masked threat faces appeared to be primarily a function of social anxiety and social avoidance, rather than trait anxiety. It was also more apparent when threat faces were presented in the left visual field, suggestive of right hemisphere

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Published date: 2002

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 18424
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/18424
ISSN: 0005-7967
PURE UUID: 5381e197-5671-4100-bedb-b9a99fc43aba
ORCID for Brendan P. Bradley: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2801-4271

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Date deposited: 21 Dec 2005
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:19

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