Cognitive Bias in Panic Disorder: A Process Dissociation Approach to Automaticity

Abstract

We applied a variant of Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure to parse the relative contributions of automatic and controlled processes to word-stem completion performance involving threatening, positive, and neutral material in patients with panic disorder and healthy control participants. Contrary to prediction, processing of threatening (relative to nonthreatening) information in panic disorder was not disproportionately influenced by automatic processing. We found limited evidence, however, that panic patients exhibit a baseline bias for completing stems relevant to threat relative to nonthreat stems, perhaps indicating a proneness to engage in self-generated priming of threat material.