Biased attention to threat and anxiety: On taking a developmental approach

Burris, Jessica L.; Buss, Kristin A.; LoBue, Vanessa; Pérez‐Edgar, Koraly; Field, Andy P.

doi:10.1177/2043808719860717

Cited by 25 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 172 publications

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“… Note: For a comprehensive review of these tasks and how they were modified from classic adult visual-attention tasks for use with infants, see Burris, Buss, LoBue, Pérez-Edgar, and Field (2019). …”

Section: Is There Room For Development In Attention Biases For Threat?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the visual paired-comparison task (d; two trials are shown), infants are presented with two images simultaneously. For a comprehensive review of these tasks and how they were modified from classic adult visual-attention tasks for use with infants, see Burris, Buss, LoBue, Pérez-Edgar, and Field (2019). Face stimuli shown here are from the NimStim Set of Facial Expressions (Tottenham et al, 2009).…”

Section: Is There Room For Development In Attention Biases For Threat?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Still other researchers have used visual engagement with threat, or the duration of time that a person remains fixated on a threat-relevant stimulus, and how the presence of threat influences subsequent processing, such as the detection of a neutral probe (e.g., LoBue et al, 2017; Pérez-Edgar et al, 2017; see Table 1 and Fig. 1 and Burris et al, 2019, for a detailed review).…”

Section: Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Until recently, there were very little data to speak to these questions, given that methodological limitations (e.g., tasks requiring button-press responses) prevented researchers from studying attention biases in children under the age of 3. However, recent advances in eye-tracking technology have allowed researchers to modify traditional attention-bias paradigms, such as the adult visual search and dot-probe tasks, into passive-viewing paradigms that are appropriate for infants (for a review, see Burris, Buss, LoBue, Pérez-Edgar, & Field, 2019). Here, we review recent findings from the infancy literature on attention biases for various threats and reflect on how we might use these data to test classic questions about whether attention biases for threat are normative, whether and for whom biases change over the course of development, and if so, what factors might contribute to this developmental change.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Biased Attention to Threat: Answering Old Questions With Young Infants

Burris

Oleas

Reider

et al. 2019

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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For decades, researchers have been interested in humans’ ability to quickly detect threat-relevant stimuli. Here, we review recent findings from infant research on biased attention to threat and discuss how these data speak to classic assumptions about whether attention biases for threat are normative, whether they change with development, and what factors might contribute to this developmental change. We conclude that although there is some stability in attention biases in infancy, various factors—including temperamental negative affect and maternal anxiety—also contribute to shaping the development of biased attention.

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Section: Is There Room For Development In Attention Biases For Threat?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Is There Room For Development In Attention Biases For Threat?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Biased Attention to Threat: Answering Old Questions With Young Infants

Burris

Oleas

Reider

et al. 2019

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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“…Several versions of the dot probe procedure have been used to investigate attentional processes in a broad range of problems, like anxiety, depression, addiction, obesity, and problematic eating behavior (Puliafico and Kendall, 2006 ; Field et al, 2016 ; Starzomska, 2017 ; Jiang and Vartanian, 2018 ; Burris et al, 2019 ; Rojo-Bofill et al, 2019 ; Kemps et al, 2020 ), encompassing a large variety in task characteristics like presentation times, stimulus types (verbal, pictorial), stimulus alignment (vertical, horizontal), instruction (detect probe, categorize probe orientation), and number of trials. Despite this procedural variability, the basic set-up of a trial in the dot probe is rather straight-forward.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Pictorial Dot Probe Task to Assess Food-Related Attentional Bias in Youth With and Without Obesity: Overview of Indices and Evaluation of Their Reliability

et al. 2021

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Several versions of the dot probe detection task are frequently used to assess maladaptive attentional processes associated with a broad range of psychopathology and health behavior, including eating behavior and weight. However, there are serious concerns about the reliability of the indices derived from the paradigm as measurement of attentional bias toward or away from salient stimuli. The present paper gives an overview of different attentional bias indices used in psychopathology research and scrutinizes three types of indices (the traditional attentional bias score, the dynamic trial-level base scores, and the probability index) calculated from a pictorial version of the dot probe task to assess food-related attentional biases in children and youngsters with and without obesity. Correlational analyses reveal that dynamic scores (but not the traditional and probability indices) are dependent on general response speed. Reliability estimates are low for the traditional and probability indices. The higher reliability for the dynamic indices is at least partially explained by general response speed. No significant group differences between youth with and without obesity are found, and correlations with weight are also non-significant. Taken together, results cast doubt on the applicability of this specific task for both experimental and individual differences research on food-related attentional biases in youth. However, researchers are encouraged to make and test adaptations to the procedure or computational algorithm in an effort to increase psychometric quality of the task and to report psychometric characteristics of their version of the task for their specific sample.

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Psychometric properties of threat‐related attentional bias in young children using eye‐tracking

Chong

Meyer

2020

Developmental Psychobiology

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Anxiety is one of the most common forms of child psychopathology associated with persistent impairment across the lifespan. Therefore, investigating mechanisms that underlie anxiety in early childhood may improve prevention and intervention efforts.Researchers have linked selective attention toward threat (i.e., attentional bias to threat) with the development of anxiety. However, previous work on attentional bias has used less reliable, reaction time (RT)-based measures of attention. Additionally, few studies have used eye-tracking to measure attentional bias in young children. In the present study, we investigated the psychometric properties of an eye-tracking measure of attentional bias in a sample of young children between 6-and 9-years-old and explored if trait and clinical anxiety were related to attentional biases to threat.Results showed good psychometric properties for threat and neutral attentional biases, comparable to those found in adult eye-tracking studies. Temperamental and clinical anxiety did not significantly relate to threat/neutral dwell time and attentional biases. The significance of these null findings was discussed in relation to existing developmental theories of attentional biases. Future studies should explore if temperamental or clinical anxiety prospectively predict threat attentional bias and the onset of anxiety in older children using a longitudinal design. K E Y W O R D Sanxiety, attentional bias, development, eye-tracking, psychometrics 2 | CHONG aNd MEYER anxiety disorders. It has been suggested that attentional bias toward threat may act as a moderator between fearful temperament and later anxiety and social withdrawal (Morales et al., 2015;Pérez-Edgar et al., 2010;White et al., 2017). Furthermore, reviews by Van Bockstaele et al. (2014) and Morales et al. (2016) have suggested that there may be bidirectional relationships between threat-related attentional bias and anxiety, such that threat-biased attention and anxiety may amplify each other. Indeed, despite strong evidence of a relationship between anxiety and attention, the exact mechanism(s) whereby attention to threat may lead to anxiety (or vice versa) remain unclear (Burris et al., 2019).Recent meta-analyses supported the general finding that anxiety is associated with selective attention toward threatening stimuli in both adults and children, d = 0.21 to 0.45 (Bar-Haim et al., 2007;Dudeney et al., 2015;Lisk et al., 2020). However, there are some mixed findings in the developmental literature: some studies have shown that children with anxiety are more vigilant toward threat

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Biased attention to threat and anxiety: On taking a developmental approach

Cited by 25 publications

References 172 publications

Biased Attention to Threat: Answering Old Questions With Young Infants

Biased Attention to Threat: Answering Old Questions With Young Infants

A Pictorial Dot Probe Task to Assess Food-Related Attentional Bias in Youth With and Without Obesity: Overview of Indices and Evaluation of Their Reliability

Psychometric properties of threat‐related attentional bias in young children using eye‐tracking

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