Health anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and attentional biases for pictorial and linguistic health‐threat cues

Lees, Andrea; Mogg, Karin; Bradley, Brendan P.

doi:10.1080/02699930441000184

Cited by 71 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The results of dot-probe studies conducted with nonanxious individuals are less consistent. Studies with nonfacial stimuli mostly did not find a bias for threat stimuli (e.g., Mogg & Bradley, 2006;Lees et al, 2005). In contrast, some studies with facial stimuli found a bias toward threat (e.g., Tomaszczyk & Fernandes, 2014), some studies found a bias away from threat (e.g., Bradley et al, 1997) and yet other studies found no bias (e.g., Bradley et al, 1998).…”

Section: Types Of Stimulimentioning

confidence: 80%

“…Longer stimulus presentation seems to affect performances of anxious individuals who shifted from vigilance to avoidance of threat with longer stimulus presentation. Yet, nonanxious individuals did not show different attentional biases (e.g., Ioannou et al, 2004;Lees et al, 2005). In addition, whether the dot-probe task applied probe detection or probe discrimination does not seem to significantly affect results Mogg & Bradley, 1999).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This hypothesis was confirmed by several dot-probe studies that directly compared participants' attentional biases when stimuli were presented for either 500 ms or a longer period (i.e., 1,250, 1,500, or 2,000 ms). Attention allocation in nonanxious individuals is not affected by stimulus presentation time for either threatening facial stimuli (e.g., Bradley et al, 1998;Ioannou et al, 2004;Pérez-Edgar, Bar-Haim, McDermott, Gorodetsky, et al, 2010) or threatening nonfacial stimuli (Lees et al, 2005;Mogg & Bradley, 2006;Mogg, Philippot, & Bradley, 2004). Anxious individuals initially show an attentional bias toward threat, yet when stimulus presentation time increased this bias disappeared or turned into avoidance of threat (Ioannou et al, 2004;Koster et al, 2005;Lees et al, 2005;Mogg, Philippot, & Bradley, 2004).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

2017

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For social animals, attending to and recognizing the emotional expressions of other individuals is of crucial importance for their survival and likely has a deep evolutionary origin. Gaining insight into how emotional expressions evolved as adaptations over the course of evolution can be achieved by making direct cross-species comparisons. To that extent, experimental paradigms that are suitable for investigating emotional processing across species need to be developed and evaluated. The emotional dot-probe task, which measures attention allocation toward emotional stimuli, has this potential. The task is implicit, and subjects need minimal training to perform the task successfully. Findings in nonhuman primates, although scarce, show that they, like humans, have an attentional bias toward emotional stimuli. However, the wide literature on human studies has shown that different factors can have important moderating effects on the results. Due to the large heterogeneity of this literature, these moderating effects often remain unnoticed. We here review this literature and show that subject characteristics and differences in experimental designs affect the results of the dot-probe task. We conclude with specific recommendations regarding these issues that are particularly relevant to take into consideration when applying this paradigm to study animals.

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Section: Types Of Stimulimentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

2017

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“…[9], [12]] or the dot-probe task [e.g. [13], [14]] to investigate preferred attention allocation towards illness-related stimuli in HA. The EST is assumed to depict the tendency for aversive stimuli to capture attention and slow down information processing due to an interference of their emotional connotation with the actual task demand [15,16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neuronal and Behavioral Correlates of Health Anxiety: Results of an Illness-Related Emotional Stroop Task

Witthöft

Mier²,

Ofer³

et al. 2013

Neuropsychobiology

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Background: Health anxiety (HA) is defined as the objectively unfounded fear or conviction of suffering from a severe illness. Predominant attention allocation to illness-related information is regarded as a central process in the development and maintenance of HA, yet little is known about the neuronal correlates of this attentional bias. Methods: An emotional Stroop task with body symptom, illness, and neutral words was employed to elicit emotional interference in healthy participants with high (HA+, n = 12) and low (HA–, n = 12) HA during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results: Prolonged reaction times for indicating the color of symptom words and a decrease in rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) activation were seen in HA+ participants. Emotional interference effects on the behavioral level were negatively related to rACC activity over the whole group. Groups did not differ during the processing of threatening illness words. Conclusion: The results indicate stronger attention allocation toward body symptom words already in subclinical HA. This attentional bias appears to be linked to hypoactivity of the rACC which impedes effective emotional interference reduction, leading instead to a ruminative processing of the stimulus content.

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“…Some studies on health anxiety have examined the cognitive processes in maintaining health anxiety [10]. A critical review of studies examining cognitive processes implicated in health anxiety [11] reported that health anxious individuals tend to negatively emotion as indicating an illness, a phenomenon known as amplification.…”

Section: Review Of the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Acceptance of Smart Wearable Devices through Health Cognitive

Huang

Lai

2016

MATEC Web Conf.

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Abstract. Many people have become "health consumers" and "health conscious" by seeking products to more effectively manage health-related lifestyle aspects such as fitness activities, healthcare, sports, and rehabilitation. The results revealed that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and health cognitive had a significant impact on attitude to use. To increase individuals' intention to use smart wearable devices, it is critical to encourage a positive attitude toward using the devices to acquire health knowledge. Emphasizing devising effective means to communicate the health utility of the devices to customers should be the highest priority for industry producers.

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Health anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and attentional biases for pictorial and linguistic health‐threat cues

Cited by 71 publications

References 26 publications

The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

Neuronal and Behavioral Correlates of Health Anxiety: Results of an Illness-Related Emotional Stroop Task

The Acceptance of Smart Wearable Devices through Health Cognitive

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