Inhibitory control moderates the association between fear and attention bias to snakes in middle childhood

Abstract

Fear and inhibitory control interact to affect the attention allocated to threats in clinically anxious populations. We examined whether fear and inhibitory control impact attention bias to threat in a community sample of 6- to 8-year-old children (n = 102). A visual search task used color photographs of snakes and caterpillars as targets and flowers as the distractors. Parents completed questionnaires about their child’s fear and inhibitory control. Results showed that the children exhibited an attentional bias to snakes. Child fear predicted for the attention bias, whereas fear and inhibitory control interacted to predict attention bias. Simple slopes analysis showed the association between fear and attention bias was significant only for children who had high inhibitory control and not significant for those who had low inhibitory control. Models of child anxiety focus on links between fear and inhibitory control; our work extends the occurrence of this phenomena to community, non-clinical populations. • Child fear was positively related to attention bias to snakes 6-to-8-year-olds. • Fear predicted the attention bias only for children with high inhibitory control. • Findings extend models of inhibitory control and fear to non-clinical populations.