Attentional biases toward threat: the concomitant presence of difficulty of disengagement and attentional avoidance in low trait anxious individuals.

Laura Sagliano,Francesca Dâ€™Olimpio,Michela Migliozzi,Katja Amoriello,Luigi Trojano

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00685

Laura Sagliano, Francesca Dâ€™Olimpio + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00685

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Abstract

Attentional biases toward threats (ABTs) have been described in high anxious individuals and in clinical samples whereas they have been rarely reported in non-clinical samples (Bar-Haim et al., 2007; Cisler and Koster, 2010). Three kinds of ABTs have been identified (facilitation, difficulty of disengagement, and avoidance) but their mechanisms and time courses are still unclear. This study aimed to understand ABTs mechanisms and timing in low trait anxiety (LTA) and high trait anxiety (HTA) anxious individuals. In particular, in an exogenous cueing task we used threatening or neutral stimuli as peripheral cues with three presentation times (100, 200, or 500 ms). The main results showed that HTA individuals have an attentional facilitation bias at 100 ms (likely automatic in nature) whereas LTA individuals show attentional avoidance and difficulty to disengage from threatening stimuli at 200 ms (likely related to a strategic processing). Such findings demonstrate that threat biases attention with specific mechanisms and time courses, and that anxiety levels modulate attention allocation.

Highlights

Different kinds of attentional biases toward threats (ABTs) have been described in high anxious individuals and in clinical samples, whereas they have been rarely reported in low anxiety individuals (Bar-Haim et al, 2007; Cisler and Koster, 2010)
The main results showed that high trait anxiety (HTA) individuals have an attentional facilitation bias at 100 ms whereas low trait anxiety (LTA) individuals show attentional avoidance and difficulty to disengage from threatening stimuli at 200 ms
Different kinds of attentional biases toward threats (ABTs) have been described in high anxious individuals and in clinical samples, whereas they have been rarely reported in low anxiety individuals (Bar-Haim et al, 2007; Cisler and Koster, 2010)

Summary

Introduction

Different kinds of attentional biases toward threats (ABTs) have been described in high anxious individuals and in clinical samples, whereas they have been rarely reported in low anxiety individuals (Bar-Haim et al, 2007; Cisler and Koster, 2010). Koster et al (2006) showed that, after an early facilitation bias, high anxious individuals show a subsequent tendency to shift their attention away from threatening stimuli (avoidance bias). According to a different point of view, the so-called vigilance–avoidance hypothesis of ABTs (Mogg et al, 2004), high anxious individuals tend to overestimate the stimuli’s threat value, and show an enhancement of automatic mechanisms detecting potential threats, and tend to avoid further processing of stimuli closely matching their own phobic concerns

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