I look there! Attentional Bias in Individuals with High Trait Anxiety
Metadatos
Afficher la notice complèteAuteur
Boncompagni, IlariaEditorial
Universidad de Granada
Departamento
Universidad de Granada. Programa de Doctorado en PsicologíaMateria
Attentional bias Anxiety
Date
2019Fecha lectura
2019-02-21Referencia bibliográfica
Boncompagni, Ilaria. I look there! Attentional Bias in Individuals with High Trait Anxiety. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2019. [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/58282]
Patrocinador
Tesis Univ. Granada.Résumé
The association between high trait anxiety and attentional bias has been extensively
explored (Bar-Haim et al., 2007; Van Bokstaele et al., 2014). The attentional bias is the
propensity of individuals with high trait-anxiety to either direct attention towards threatrelated
stimuli or the difficulty to disengage attention from them (Beck and Clarke
1997; Eysenck 1992; Mathews 1990; Mathews and MacLeod 2002; Williams et al.
1988; Bar-Haim et al. 2007). However, it is not possible to find a unique definition of
attentional bias. In particular, while some studies show facilitated attentional orienting
towards stimuli evaluated as threatening, other experiments observe a difficulty in
disengaging attention from the emotionally relevant stimulus. The finding of different
mechanisms underlying the bias could be due to some methodological choices.
First of all, the choice of the experimental paradigm is particularly important. While the
attentional bias evaluated through the Emotional Stroop Task provides information on
the ability to resolve the conflict in response to a threatening stimulus, the Dot-Probe
Task and the Emotional Spatial Cueing Task analyse the attentional orienting to
emotionally relevant stimuli. Secondly, the selection of stimuli could also influence the
results. In fact, according to the stimulus used (a word, a picture, or a face), the studies
observe different results. Finally, another relevant factor concerns the evaluation of
attentional bias in woman and men. Although anxiety is a predominantly female
disorder (33.3% women; 22% men; McLean et al., 2011), few studies consider the
gender.
To better understand the methodological issues in this field, this dissertation aimed to
compare three different stimuli (words, pictures and faces) and four paradigms
(Emotional Stroop Task, Dot-Probe Task, Emotional Spatial Cueing Task and
Emotional-Target Spatial Cueing Task) in men and women characterised by high vs.
low trait-anxiety. A few previous studies have considered the gender difference in the
assessment of attentional bias in individuals with high vs. low trait-anxiety; the analysis
of gender differences in the current thesis could represent an important factor in the
evaluation of attentional bias. Specifically, males and females could adopt different
pattern in response to threatening stimuli, i.e. avoidance of stimulus, rapid attentional
orienting toward the stimulus or difficulties in attentional disengagement from the
stimulus.
In the first chapter, a systematic review of the literature has tried to more clearly define
the inconsistencies between the results of studies on the attentional bias in individuals
with high trait-anxiety. According to the results of this systematic review, four
experiments were carried out. Each experiment used different paradigms and compared
different types of stimuli (pictures, words, and faces). The second chapter presents the
first experiment in which an Emotional Stroop Task was administered; in the third
chapter, a Dot-Probe Task was used; in the fourth chapter, an Emotional Spatial Cueing
procedure was employed (an emotional-relevance paradigm); finally, in the fifth
chapter, an Emotional-Target Spatial Cueing procedure was adopted (emotionalirrelevance
paradigm). In all the experiments both men and women participants were
invited to participate, and the gender of participants was included as a between
participants factor in the analyses.