Observational fear conditioning in the acquisition and extinction of attentional bias for threat: An experimental evaluation.

@article{citeulike:1323691, abstract = {Anxious persons show automatic and strategic attentional biases for threatening information. Yet, the mechanisms and processes that underlie such biases remain unclear. The central aim of the present study was to elucidate the relation between observational threat learning and the acquisition and extinction of biased threat processing by integrating emotional Stroop color naming tasks within an observational differential fear conditioning procedure. Forty-three healthy female participants underwent several consecutive observational fear conditioning phases. During acquisition, participants watched a confederate displaying mock panic attacks (UCS) paired with a verbal stimulus (CS+), but not with a second nonreinforced verbal stimulus (CS-). As expected, participants showed greater magnitude electrodermal and verbal-evaluative (e.g., distress, fear) conditioned responses to the CS+ over the CS- word. Participants also demonstrated slower color-naming latencies to CS+ compared to the CS- word following acquisition and showed attenuation of this preferential processing bias for threat following extinction. Findings are discussed broadly in the context of the interplay between fear learning and processing biases for threat as observed in persons suffering from anxiety disorders.}, author = {Kelly, M. M. and Forsyth, J. P. }, citeulike-article-id = {1323691}, journal = {Emotion}, keywords = {anxiety, attentional-bias, conditioning, stroop, word}, number = {2}, pages = {324--335}, posted-at = {2007-05-24 02:46:40}, priority = {4}, title = {Observational fear conditioning in the acquisition and extinction of attentional bias for threat: An experimental evaluation.}, volume = {7}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1323691 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1323691 TI - Observational fear conditioning in the acquisition and extinction of attentional bias for threat: An experimental evaluation. JF - Emotion VL - 7 IS - 2 SP - 324 EP - 335 N2 - Anxious persons show automatic and strategic attentional biases for threatening information. Yet, the mechanisms and processes that underlie such biases remain unclear. The central aim of the present study was to elucidate the relation between observational threat learning and the acquisition and extinction of biased threat processing by integrating emotional Stroop color naming tasks within an observational differential fear conditioning procedure. Forty-three healthy female participants underwent several consecutive observational fear conditioning phases. During acquisition, participants watched a confederate displaying mock panic attacks (UCS) paired with a verbal stimulus (CS+), but not with a second nonreinforced verbal stimulus (CS-). As expected, participants showed greater magnitude electrodermal and verbal-evaluative (e.g., distress, fear) conditioned responses to the CS+ over the CS- word. Participants also demonstrated slower color-naming latencies to CS+ compared to the CS- word following acquisition and showed attenuation of this preferential processing bias for threat following extinction. Findings are discussed broadly in the context of the interplay between fear learning and processing biases for threat as observed in persons suffering from anxiety disorders. KW - anxiety KW - attentional-bias KW - conditioning KW - stroop KW - word AU - Kelly, MM AU - Forsyth, JP PY - 2007/// ER -