Change in Attentional Control Predicts Change in Attentional Bias to Negative Information in Response to Elevated State
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Change in Attentional Control Predicts Change in Attentional Bias to Negative Information in Response to Elevated State Anxiety Julian Basanovic1 · Isabelle Kaiko1 · Colin MacLeod1 Accepted: 5 November 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Background Researchers have demonstrated that elevation in state anxiety leads to elevation in attentional bias favouring the processing of negative information, and that the magnitude of this attentional bias change varies across individuals. However, research has not identified the mechanisms that underpin individual variation in state-anxiety induced attentional bias change. Researchers have also demonstrated that inhibitory control of attention becomes impaired when state anxiety is elevated, and cognitive models propose that impaired inhibitory control of attention may underpin attentional bias to negative information. Thus, the present study investigated whether individual differences in the magnitude of attentional bias elevation elicited by heightened state anxiety is predicted by the degree to which such state anxiety elevation impairs attentional control. Methods Eighty participants completed assessments of attentional bias to negative information and inhibitory control of attention prior to, and following, a procedure designed to elevate state anxiety. Results It was observed that greater elevation in attentional bias to negative information was predicted by lesser decline in inhibitory control of attention as state anxiety increased. Conclusions Findings support proposal of a relationship between attentional control and attentional bias to negative information, though are inconsistent with the proposal that heightened attentional bias to negative information is uniformly underpinned by greater impairment in attentional control. Implications are discussed. Keywords Anxiety · State anxiety · Attentional bias · Attentional control
Introduction Heightened attentional bias to negative information, reflecting a relatively heightened attentional preference for the processing of negative information over non-negative information, is implicated as a cognitive characteristic of heightened anxiety vulnerability (Bar-Haim et al. 2007). Attentional bias to negative information is commonly assessed using the dot-probe task. In this task, participants are briefly presented with pairs of emotionally discrepant stimuli. One stimulus is negatively valenced in emotional tone (e.g. the word “kill”) Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10176-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Julian Basanovic [email protected] 1
Centre for the Advancement of Research On Emotion, School of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
while the other is non-negatively valenced (e.g., the word “hair”). Following offset of the stimulus pair, participants must discriminate the identit
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