CiteULike: jeep trait-anxiety

Attention to threat in high and low trait-anxious individuals: a study using extremely threatening pictorial cues.

X Li — 2007-09-22T01:38:23-00:00

Percept Mot Skills, Vol. 104, No. 3 Pt 2. (June 2007), pp. 1097-1106.

Previous research suggested that individuals with high trait anxiety have difficulties disengaging their attention from threatening cues, whereas those with low trait anxiety have no such attentional bias. However, according to some cognitive models of threat-related attention, low anxious people should show the same pattern as high anxious people when the threat value is large enough. To test this hypothesis, extremely threatening pictures were used as predictive location cues in a cue-target task. Neutral pictures were included as controls. 15 High Anxious participants and 17 Low Anxious participants were selected from 213 volunteers who all were police veterans. Analysis showed that threat cues produced greater facilitation effects than neutral cues, but this was not modulated by anxiety. This suggests that both high and low anxious individuals may have difficulties disengaging their attention from threat-cued locations when the threat value is large enough.

Neural Processing of Fearful Faces: Effects of Anxiety are Gated by Perceptual Capacity Limitations.

Sonia Bishop — 2006-09-12T12:31:18-00:00

Cereb Cortex　Advance Access, Vol. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl070 (6 September 2006)

Debate continues as to the automaticity of the amygdala's response to threat. Accounts taking a strong automaticity line suggest that the amygdala's response to threat is both involuntary and independent of attentional resources. Building on these accounts, prominent models have suggested that anxiety modulates the output of an amygdala-based preattentive threat evaluation system. Here, we argue for a modification of these models. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected while volunteers performed a letter search task of high or low perceptual load superimposed on fearful or neutral face distractors. Neither high- nor low-anxious volunteers showed an increased amygdala response to threat distractors under high perceptual load, contrary to a strong automaticity account of amygdala function. Under low perceptual load, elevated state anxiety was associated with a heightened response to threat distractors in the amygdala and superior temporal sulcus, whereas individuals high in trait anxiety showed a reduced prefrontal response to these stimuli, consistent with weakened recruitment of control mechanisms used to prevent the further processing of salient distractors. These findings suggest that anxiety modulates processing subsequent to competition for perceptual processing resources, with state and trait anxiety having distinguishable influences upon the neural mechanisms underlying threat evaluation and "top-down" control.

Individual Differences in Trait Anxiety Predict the Response of the Basolateral Amygdala to Unconsciously Processed Fearful Faces

Amit Etkin — 2007-05-10T17:53:10-00:00

Neuron, Vol. 44 (16 December 2004), pp. 1043-1055.

Responses to threat-related stimuli are influenced by conscious and unconscious processes, but the neural systems underlying these processes and their relationship to anxiety have not been clearly delineated. Using fMRI, we investigated the neural responses associated with the conscious and unconscious (backwardly masked) perception of fearful faces in healthy volunteers who varied in threat sensitivity (Spielberger trait anxiety scale). Unconscious processing modulated activity only in the basolateral subregion of the amygdala, while conscious processing modulated activity only in the dorsal amygdala (containing the central nucleus). Whereas activation of the dorsal amygdala by conscious stimuli was consistent across subjects and independent of trait anxiety, activity in the basolateral amygdala to unconscious stimuli, and subjects' reaction times, were predicted by individual differences in trait anxiety. These findings provide a biological basis for the unconscious emotional vigilance characteristic of anxiety and a means for investigating the mechanisms and efficacy of treatments for anxiety.

Covert and overt attention in trait anxiety: a cognitive psychophysiological analysis

Niall Broomfield — 2007-05-10T16:10:31-00:00

Biological Psychology, Vol. 68, No. 3. (March 2005), pp. 179-200.

The effect of threatening cues and anxiety upon attention within a Posner paradigm was investigated in two experiments. It was predicted anxious individuals would show a bias to threat-related material. Heart rate and eye movements were obtained to assess the attentional processes associated with this cognitive bias. Sixty and 40 participants were allocated respectively to groups based on self-reported scores of anxiety and repressive coping style. All participants were exposed to threat and non-threat cue words within a word based Posner cueing task. In the second study, spatial position of the target was manipulated, together with instructional set. Differential patterns of attentional disengagement to threat were found that were modulated by trait anxiety in study 2. A bias towards threat involving uninstructed eye movements was observed amongst anxious participants. Repressors made few such eye movements. Findings are discussed in relation to models of attentional deployment to threat.

Trait anxiety and autonomic indicators of the processing of threatening information: A cued S1-S2 paradigm

Andreas Schwerdtfeger — 2007-05-10T16:00:58-00:00

Biological Psychology, Vol. 72, No. 1. (April 2006), pp. 59-66.

The aim of this study was to use autonomic parameters in a cued S1-S2 task to examine associations between the processing of threatening information and trait anxiety in normal individuals. Forty-six student volunteers were designated high- or low-anxious due to pre-defined cutoff scores on the STAI. A cued S1-S2 task was presented in which the type of warning signal (S1) was consistently related to either threatening or non-threatening pictures (S2). Ten threat and 10 non-threat pictures were randomly presented. Heart rate and electrodermal activity were recorded in the time interval between S1 and S2. Results indicated deeper heart rate decelerations on threatening trials in high-anxious as compared to low-anxious individuals. For non-threatening trials, the opposite pattern was found. Moreover, high-anxious participants exhibited higher electrodermal responses to the S1, irrespective of the trial's valence as well as stronger responses to the threatening S2. Autonomic responses can, thus, be regarded as sensitive markers of information processing differences in trait anxiety.

Components of attentional bias to threat in high trait anxiety: Facilitated engagement, impaired disengagement, and attentional avoidance

Ernst Koster — 2007-05-10T15:51:04-00:00

Behaviour Research and Therapy, Vol. 44, No. 12. (December 2006), pp. 1757-1771.

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating enhanced attention to threat in high trait anxious individuals (HTA) compared with low trait anxious individuals (LTA). In two experiments, we investigated whether this attentional bias is related to facilitated attentional engagement to threat or difficulties disengaging attention from threat. HTA and LTA undergraduates performed a modified exogenous cueing task, in which the location of a target was correctly or incorrectly cued by neutral, highly and mildly threatening pictures. Results indicate that at 100 ms picture presentation, HTA individuals more strongly engaged their attention with and showed impaired disengagement from highly threatening pictures than LTA individuals. In addition, HTA individuals showed a stronger tendency to attentional avoidance of threat at the 200 and 500 ms picture presentation. These data provide evidence for differential patterns of anxiety-related biases in attentive processing of threat at early versus later stages of information processing.