TY - JOUR
T1 - Attentional biases toward threat
T2 - The concomitant presence of difficulty of disengagement and attentional avoidance in low trait anxious individuals
AU - Sagliano, Laura
AU - Trojano, Luigi
AU - Amoriello, Katja
AU - Migliozzi, Michela
AU - D'Olimpio, Francesca
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Attentional biases toward threats (ABTs) have been described in high anxious individuals and in clinical samples whereas they have been rarely reported in non-clinical samples (Bar-Haim et al., 2007; Cisler and Koster, 2010). Three kinds of ABTs have been identified (facilitation, difficulty of disengagement, and avoidance) but their mechanisms and time courses are still unclear. This study aimed to understand ABTs mechanisms and timing in low trait anxiety (LTA) and high trait anxiety (HTA) anxious individuals. In particular, in an exogenous cueing task we used threatening or neutral stimuli as peripheral cues with three presentation times (100, 200, or 500 ms). The main results showed that HTA individuals have an attentional facilitation bias at 100 ms (likely automatic in nature) whereas LTA individuals show attentional avoidance and difficulty to disengage from threatening stimuli at 200 ms (likely related to a strategic processing). Such findings demonstrate that threat biases attention with specific mechanisms and time courses, and that anxiety levels modulate attention allocation.
AB - Attentional biases toward threats (ABTs) have been described in high anxious individuals and in clinical samples whereas they have been rarely reported in non-clinical samples (Bar-Haim et al., 2007; Cisler and Koster, 2010). Three kinds of ABTs have been identified (facilitation, difficulty of disengagement, and avoidance) but their mechanisms and time courses are still unclear. This study aimed to understand ABTs mechanisms and timing in low trait anxiety (LTA) and high trait anxiety (HTA) anxious individuals. In particular, in an exogenous cueing task we used threatening or neutral stimuli as peripheral cues with three presentation times (100, 200, or 500 ms). The main results showed that HTA individuals have an attentional facilitation bias at 100 ms (likely automatic in nature) whereas LTA individuals show attentional avoidance and difficulty to disengage from threatening stimuli at 200 ms (likely related to a strategic processing). Such findings demonstrate that threat biases attention with specific mechanisms and time courses, and that anxiety levels modulate attention allocation.
KW - Anxiety
KW - Attentional bias
KW - Avoidance
KW - Disengagement
KW - Spatial attention
KW - Threat
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84904890315&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84904890315&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00685
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00685
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84904890315
VL - 5
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
SN - 1664-1078
IS - JUL
M1 - 685
ER -