The time-course of attentional bias in anxious children and adolescents

Gamble, Amanda; Rapee, Ronald M.

doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.04.001

Cited by 69 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The comparable attention to threat found in our anxious and non-anxious groups is in keeping with this hypothesis. Furthermore, two previous eyetracking studies with anxious children have also found comparable attention to threat stimuli in anxious and non-anxious groups; Seefeldt et al (2014) reported vigilance for angry over neutral faces in both anxious and non-anxious children aged 8-12 years and Gamble and Rapee (2009) found that both anxious and nonanxious children attended to angry faces for longer than neutral faces within the first 2 s of stimulus presentation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

“…To our knowledge, only four studies have used eyetracking to examine attentional bias in anxious children (Gamble and Rapee 2009;In-Albon, Kossowsky, and Schneider 2010;Seefeldt, Kramer, Tuschen-Caffier, and Heinrichs 2014;Shechner et al 2013). All of these studies used a freeviewing paradigm, recording gaze whilst pairs of emotional stimuli were presented.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…All of these studies used a freeviewing paradigm, recording gaze whilst pairs of emotional stimuli were presented. The findings are somewhat inconsistent across studies but in general there is only modest support for an anxiety-related vigilance bias in anxious children; InAlbon et al (2010) and Gamble and Rapee (2009) both found no vigilance bias in child participants, Seefeldt et al (2014) found a vigilance bias in socially anxious children only when state anxiety was elevated via an experimental manipulation, and Shechner et al (2013) found a vigilance bias but their sample included participants aged up to 17 years.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, to date, there is little indication of a bias in maintained attention in child anxiety, with three of the four studies conducted with children failing to find differences between clinically anxious children and controls on maintained attention to emotional faces (Gamble and Rapee 2009;Seefeldt et al 2014;Shechner et al. 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…2013). Importantly, there is some indication in two studies that both anxious and non-anxious children may preferentially attend to threatening stimuli (Gamble and Rapee 2009;Seefeldt et al 2014). None of the studies using eyetracking with children examined initial maintenance of attention.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Anxiety and Attentional Bias in Preschool-Aged Children: An Eyetracking Study

Dodd

Hudson

Williams

et al. 2014

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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Extensive research has examined attentional bias for threat in anxious adults and school-aged children but it is unclear when this anxiety-related bias is first established. This study uses eyetracking technology to assess attentional bias in a sample of 83 children aged 3 or 4 years. Of these, 37 (19 female) met criteria for an anxiety disorder and 46 (30 female) did not. Gaze was recorded during a free-viewing task with angry-neutral face pairs presented for 1250 ms. There was no indication of between-group differences in threat bias, with both anxious and non-anxious groups showing vigilance for angry faces as well as longer dwell times to angry over neutral faces. Importantly, however, the anxious participants spent significantly less time looking at the faces overall, when compared to the non-anxious group. The results suggest that both anxious and non-anxious preschool-aged children preferentially attend to threat but that anxious children may be more avoidant of faces than non-anxious children.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Anxiety and Attentional Bias in Preschool-Aged Children: An Eyetracking Study

Dodd

Hudson

Williams

et al. 2014

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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Using Eye Tracking Methodology in Children with Anxiety Disorders

In‐Albon

Schneider

2010

Information Processing Biases and Anxiety

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Attention Bias of Anxious Youth During Extended Exposure of Emotional Face Pairs: An Eye-Tracking Study

Shechner

Jarcho²,

Britton³

et al. 2012

Depress Anxiety

102

105

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Background Previous studies demonstrate that anxiety is characterized by biased attention toward threats, typically measured by differences in motor reaction time to threat and neutral cues. Using eye-tracking methodology, the current study measured attention biases in anxious and nonanxious youth, using unrestricted free viewing of angry, happy, and neutral faces. Methods Eighteen anxious and 15 nonanxious youth (8–17 years old) passively viewed angry-neutral and happy-neutral face pairs for 10 s while their eye movements were recorded. Results Anxious youth displayed a greater attention bias toward angry faces than nonanxious youth, and this bias occurred in the earliest phases of stimulus presentation. Specifically, anxious youth were more likely to direct their first fixation to angry faces, and they made faster fixations to angry than neutral faces. Conclusions Consistent with findings from earlier, reaction-time studies, the current study shows that anxious youth, like anxious adults, exhibit biased orienting to threat-related stimuli. This study adds to the existing literature by documenting that threat biases in eye-tracking patterns are manifest at initial attention orienting.

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The time-course of attentional bias in anxious children and adolescents

Cited by 69 publications

References 46 publications

Anxiety and Attentional Bias in Preschool-Aged Children: An Eyetracking Study

Anxiety and Attentional Bias in Preschool-Aged Children: An Eyetracking Study

Using Eye Tracking Methodology in Children with Anxiety Disorders

Attention Bias of Anxious Youth During Extended Exposure of Emotional Face Pairs: An Eye-Tracking Study

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