Suppression of Attentional Bias in PTSD.

Constans, Joseph I.; McCloskey, Michael S.; Vasterling, Jennifer J.; Brailey, Kevin; Mathews, Andrew

doi:10.1037/0021-843x.113.2.315

Cited by 83 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…By presenting social threat or neutral prime words immediately prior to standard dot-probe trials, we replicated and extended previous research reporting that when anxious individuals are presented with a more general stressor prior to an attention task, this initial stressor modulates their performance (Mathews & Sebastian, 1993;Amir, et al, 1996;Constans, et al, 2004). In our study, when high socially-anxious participants were presented with a neutral word prior to dot-probe trials they showed an attention bias toward threat.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Previous research suggests that increased effort on a task is accompanied by a general increase in task performance, reflected in overall faster reaction times and greater accuracy (Mathews & Sebastian, 1993;Amir et al, 1996;Williams et al, 1996;Mathews & Mackintosh, 1998;Constans et al, 2004). However, in the current study high socially-anxious individuals did not show an overall speeding in performance or increased accuracy on threat prime trials relative to neutral prime trials.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 80%

“…Likewise, the attention bias effect for highly anxious participants disappeared when they were either told they would be taking an IQ test after the task (Mogg et al, 1993), or, in the case of social phobics, when they were told they would be asked to give a speech after the task (Amir et al, 1996). Vietnam veterans with PTSD also showed a suppression of an attention bias to threat when told they would be asked to watch combat videos after performing the emotional Stroop task (Constans et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the emotional Stroop task, where participants are asked to name the color ink in which a set of words are printed, anxious individuals typically evidence greater interference, reflected in slower reaction times for emotionally evocative words compared to neutral words, an effect not seen in nonanxious individuals (Williams, Mathews, & MacLeod, 1996). Several studies have shown that this effect disappears when anxious participants are asked to perform the task while experiencing a larger threat or stressor (Mathews & Sebastian, 1993;Mogg, Kentish, & Bradley, 1993;Amir, McNally, Riemann, & Burns, 1996;Constans, McCloskey, Vasterling, Brailey, & Mathews, 2004). Mathews and Sebastian (1993), for example, showed that the slowed reaction times of snake phobics to both snake-related words and generally threatening words disappeared when told that they would be asked to touch a live boa constrictor after the task.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Affective primes suppress attention bias to threat in socially anxious individuals

Helfinstein

White

Bar‐Haim

2008

Behaviour Research and Therapy

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Anxious individuals show an attention bias towards threatening information. However, under conditions of sustained environmental threat this otherwise-present attention bias disappears. It remains unclear whether this suppression of attention bias can be caused by a transient activation of the fear system. In the present experiment, high socially-anxious and low socially-anxious individuals (HSA group, n = 12; LSA group, n = 12) performed a modified dot-probe task in which they were shown either a neutral or socially threatening prime word prior to each trial. EEG was collected and ERP components to the prime and faces displays were computed. The behavioral results indicated that HSA individuals show an attention bias to threat after a neutral prime, but no attention bias after a threatening prime, demonstrating that suppression of attention bias can occur after a transient activation of the fear system. Low Socially Anxious individuals showed an opposite pattern: no evidence of a bias to threat with neutral primes but induction of an attention bias to threat following threat primes. ERP results suggested differential processing of the primes and faces displays by HSA and LSA individuals. However, no group by prime interaction was found for any of ERP components.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Affective primes suppress attention bias to threat in socially anxious individuals

Helfinstein

White

Bar‐Haim

2008

Behaviour Research and Therapy

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“…Again, the ESE is defined by the difference in color naming performance between the emotion words and the neutral words. It has become the tool of choice for fine-tuned diagnosis in a gamut of pathologies from generalized anxiety (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1985;Mathews, Mogg, Kentish, & Eysenck, 1995;Mogg & Bradley, 2005) to trait anxiety (e.g., Mogg, Kentish, & Bradley, 1993;Rutherford, MacLeod, & Campbell, 2004), obsessivecompulsive disorders (e.g., Paunovic, Lundh, & Ost, 2002;Constans, McCloskey, Vasterling, Brailey, & Mathews, 2004), depression (e.g., Mogg & Bradley, 2005;Mitterschiffthaler et al, 2008), social phobia (Amir, Freshman, & Foa, 2002;Andersson, Westöö, Johansson, & Carlbring, 2006), and posttraumatic stress disorders (e.g., Paunovic et al, 2002;Constans et al, 2004). The common pattern observed in these as well as in other studies (see Algom et al, 2009;Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van Ijzendoorn, 2007;Williams, Mathews, & MacLeod, 1996, for reviews) is the selective slowdown, at test, with items associated with threat, emotion, or pathology.…”

Section: The Ese: a Brief Review Of Current Research And Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avoiding the approach trap: A response bias theory of the emotional Stroop effect.

Chajut¹,

Mama²,

Levy³

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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In the laboratory, people classify the color of emotion-laden words slower than they do that of neutral words, the emotional Stroop effect. Outside the laboratory, people react to features of emotion-laden stimuli or threatening stimuli faster than they do to those of neutral stimuli. A possible resolution to the conundrum implicates the counternatural response demands imposed in the laboratory that do not, as a rule, provide for avoidance in the face of threat. In 2 experiments we show that when such an option is provided in the laboratory, the response latencies follow those observed in real life. These results challenge the dominant attention theory offered for the emotional Stroop effect because this theory is indifferent to the vital approach-avoidance distinction.

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