Anxiety and the selective processing of emotional information: Mediating roles of awareness, trait and state variables, and personal relevance of stimu

Selective attention for masked and unmasked threatening words in anxiety: Effects of trait anxiety, state anxiety and awareness

“…The data were therefore consistent with previous reports employing the emotional Stroop that have demonstrated masked threat effects in nonclinical participants (e.g., Rutherford et al, 2004;MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992). In Experiment 2, Fox blocked on the mode of exposure such that all participants received the masked block of trials before the unmasked block of trials.…”

“…In a recent paper we reported unmasked threat bias effects in a sample of HTA participants who were currently under stress using the emotional Stroop (Edwards et al, 2006). Perhaps the differential data patterns between our study and previous experiments that have failed to report unmasked threat processing biases in non-clinical samples (e.g., Fox, 1996;MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992) might be accounted for on the basis of the immediacy of the state anxiety manipulation. In the present paper we readdress that issue.…”

“…Despite chance performance in determining the lexical status of the item before the mask, a number of studies have reported data showing that relative to non-anxious controls, anxious individuals are slower to name the colour of masked threat words compared to masked non-threat control words. These effects have been reported in clinically anxious samples (e.g., Bradley et al, 1995;Foa, Feske, Murdock, Kozak & McCarthy, 1991;Harvey et al, 1996;Lundh et al, 1999) and in HTA participants experiencing high levels of state anxiety (e.g., MacLeod & Hagan, 1992; MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992;Rutherford, MacLeod & Campbell, 2004).…”

“…In Experiment 1 and 2, Fox employed experimental procedures designed to elevate state anxiety, whereas in Experiment 3 there was no mention of a state anxiety manipulation. In non-clinical samples masked threat processing biases have typically been restricted to testing sessions involving elevated state anxiety (see e.g., Edwards et al, 2006;MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992;Rutherford et al, 2004) and therefore it is plausible that the absence of a masked threat effect in the masked exposure first condition of Fox's third experiment can be accounted for by the lack of a state anxiety manipulation. One of the aims of the present study was to investigate this possibility.…”

“…A secondary aim of the present experiment was to investigate further the lack of threat processing effects during the unmasked trials in a number of experiments (e.g., Fox, 1996;MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992). For example, although Fox interpreted the lack of unmasked threat effects for the HTA group in terms of a strategic inhibitory mechanism, it might also have been that the state anxiety manipulations reflecting a past stressor (Experiment 1) and future stressor (Experiment 2) were not sufficiently sensitive to produce threat processing biases on these trials.…”