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Memory-based attentional biases: Anxiety is linked to threat avoidance.

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Author

Summary, in English

The purpose of the present research was to examine if anxiety is linked to a memory-based attentional bias, in which attention to threat is thought to depend on implicit learning. Memory-based attentional biases were defined and also demonstrated in two experiments. A total of 168 university students were shown a pair of faces that varied in their emotional content (angry, neutral, and happy), with each type of emotion being consistently preceded by a particular neutral cue face, appearing in the same position. Eye movements were measured during these cue faces and during the emotional faces. The results of two experiments indicated that anxiety was connected with a tendency to avert one’s gaze from the positions of angry faces to the positions of happy faces, before these were shown on the screen. This, in turn, caused a reduced perception of angry relative to happy faces. In Experiment 2, participants were also not aware of having a memory-based attentional bias.

Publishing year

2004

Language

English

Pages

1027-1054

Publication/Series

Cognition and Emotion

Volume

18

Issue

8

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Psychology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0269-9931