Attentional bias towards angry faces in childhood anxiety disorders
Attentional bias towards angry faces in childhood anxiety disorders
Objective: To examine attentional bias towards angry and happy faces in 8 to 12 year old children with anxiety disorders (n=29) and non-anxious controls (n=24).
Method: Children completed a visual probe task in which pairs of angry/neutral and happy/neutral faces were displayed for 500 ms and were replaced by a visual probe in the spatial location of one of the faces.
Results: Children with more severe anxiety showed an attentional bias towards angry relative to neutral faces, compared with anxious children who had milder anxiety and non-anxious control children, both of whom did not show an attentional bias for angry faces. Unexpectedly, all groups showed an attentional bias towards happy faces relative to neutral ones.
Conclusions: Anxiety symptom severity increases attention to threat stimuli in anxious children. This association may be due to differing threat appraisal processes or emotion regulation strategies.
attentional bias, anxiety disorders, children
158-164
Waters, Allison M.
645fe1e5-8d54-4667-a198-ab6862031291
Henry, Julie
61ee370e-7f25-47c1-86a1-82fa972597f6
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514
Pine, Daniel S.
debffc1c-1efc-4bcf-81b3-87aadee1047d
2010
Waters, Allison M.
645fe1e5-8d54-4667-a198-ab6862031291
Henry, Julie
61ee370e-7f25-47c1-86a1-82fa972597f6
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514
Pine, Daniel S.
debffc1c-1efc-4bcf-81b3-87aadee1047d
Waters, Allison M., Henry, Julie, Mogg, Karin, Bradley, Brendan P. and Pine, Daniel S.
(2010)
Attentional bias towards angry faces in childhood anxiety disorders.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 41 (2), .
(doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.12.001).
Abstract
Objective: To examine attentional bias towards angry and happy faces in 8 to 12 year old children with anxiety disorders (n=29) and non-anxious controls (n=24).
Method: Children completed a visual probe task in which pairs of angry/neutral and happy/neutral faces were displayed for 500 ms and were replaced by a visual probe in the spatial location of one of the faces.
Results: Children with more severe anxiety showed an attentional bias towards angry relative to neutral faces, compared with anxious children who had milder anxiety and non-anxious control children, both of whom did not show an attentional bias for angry faces. Unexpectedly, all groups showed an attentional bias towards happy faces relative to neutral ones.
Conclusions: Anxiety symptom severity increases attention to threat stimuli in anxious children. This association may be due to differing threat appraisal processes or emotion regulation strategies.
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Submitted date: November 2009
Published date: 2010
Keywords:
attentional bias, anxiety disorders, children
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Local EPrints ID: 71709
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/71709
ISSN: 0005-7916
PURE UUID: c27df0d7-1939-44b9-8636-8d30888e6145
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Date deposited: 18 Dec 2009
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:45
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Author:
Allison M. Waters
Author:
Julie Henry
Author:
Daniel S. Pine
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