Selective processing of masked and unmasked verbal threat material in anxiety: Influence of an immediate acute stressor

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

“…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. 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.…”

“…The results from a number of studies using the emotional Stroop procedure have shown that relative to non-anxious controls, anxious participants are slower to name the colour of threat words than neutral words, presumably because the content of the item interferes with performance on the colour naming task. Threat related biases have shown to be associated with a variety of clinical anxiety disorders including PTSD (e.g., Harvey, Bryant & Rapee, 1996), panic disorder (e.g., Lundh, Wikström, Westerlund & Öst, 1999;McNally, Riemann & Kim, 1990), GAD (e.g., Bradley, Mogg, Millar & White, 1995;Mogg, Bradley, Williams & Mathews, 1993), OCD (e.g., Cohen, Lachenmeyer & Springer, 2003), and generalised social phobia (Amir, Freshman & Foa, 2002), and in non-clinical high trait anxious individuals who experience elevations in state anxiety (e.g., Edwards, Burt & Lipp, 2006;Miller & Patrick, 2000). Importantly, because participants are instructed to ignore the meaning of the item and to name the colour as quickly as possible, these data suggest that selective threat bias effects might operate automatically, at least in the sense that they occur without volition.…”

“…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.…”

“…Half the participants received masked exposures before unmasked exposures, whereas the other half received the opposite. The threat and neutral words employed have shown to be effective in producing attentional bias effects in previous research (Edwards et al, 2006). To control for item specific priming effects, each item was presented on just one occasion to each participant.…”

“…To control for item specific priming effects, each item was presented on just one occasion to each participant. Following previous work employing non-clinical samples (e.g., Edwards et al, 2006;MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992), participants were assigned to the HTA and LTA groups on the basis of questionnaire scores.…”