Abstract
The dot-probe task is often considered a gold standard in the field for investigating attentional bias to threat. However, serious issues with the task have been raised. Specifically, a number of studies have demonstrated that the traditional reaction time (RT) measure of attentional bias to threat in the dot-probe task has poor internal reliability and poor test-retest reliability. In addition, although threatening stimuli capture attention in other paradigms, attentional bias to threat has not usually been found in typical research participants in the dot-probe task. However, when attention is measured in the dot-probe task with the N2pc component of the event-related potential waveform, substantial attentional orienting to threat is observed, and the internal reliability is moderate. To provide a rigorous comparison of the reliability of this N2pc measure and the conventional behavioral measure, as well as to examine the relationship of these measures to anxiety, the present study examined the N2pc in conjunction with RT in the dot-probe task in a large sample of participants (N = 96). As in previous studies, RT showed no bias to threatening images across the sample and exhibited poor internal reliability. Moreover, this measure did not relate to trait anxiety. By contrast, the N2pc revealed a significant initial shift of attention to threat, and this measure was internally reliable. However, the N2pc was not correlated with trait anxiety, indicating that it does not provide a meaningful index of individual differences in anxiety in the dot-probe task. Together, these results indicate a serious need to develop new tasks and methods to more reliably investigate attentional bias to threat and its relationship to anxiety in both clinical and non-clinical populations.
Highlights
Threatening stimuli convey important information about the surrounding environment and are thought to automatically capture attention (e.g., LeDoux, 1996; Eastwood et al, 2001; Öhman et al, 2001a)
In line with previous dot probe studies, we found no www.frontiersin.org evidence of an attentional bias to threat across the sample using the traditional reaction time (RT) measure of threat bias in this task
Insofar as internal reliability limits both the validity of a measure and the ability of a measure to correlate with another trait-like measure, the RTbased measure of threat bias in this task was not an appropriate measure of individual differences in anxiety
Summary
Threatening stimuli convey important information about the surrounding environment and are thought to automatically capture attention (e.g., LeDoux, 1996; Eastwood et al, 2001; Öhman et al, 2001a). Abnormal allocation of attention to threat is thought to play a key role in anxiety disorders, providing a possible mechanism for distinguishing between normal and abnormal responses to threatening information (Beck, 1976; Williams et al, 1988; Mathews, 1990; Eysenck, 1992; Mathews and MacLeod, 2002; Bar-Haim et al, 2007; Cisler and Koster, 2010). The dot-probe task, developed by MacLeod et al (1986), is considered a gold standard in the field for investigating attentional bias to threatening stimuli. In this task, a threatening stimulus and a neutral stimulus are presented simultaneously in different spatial locations (e.g., one to the left visual field and one to the right visual field), followed by the presentation of a target item at one of the cued locations. Reaction times (RTs) to targets that appear at the prior location of the threatening stimulus (i.e., threat-congruent trials) are compared with RTs to targets that appear at the prior location of the neutral stimulus (i.e., threat-incongruent trials); faster responses on threat-congruent trials are interpreted as evidence of an attentional bias to the location of the threatening stimulus
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