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The time-course of visual threat processing: High trait anxious individuals eventually avert their gaze from angry faces

Author

Summary, in English

Several experiments have shown that anxious individuals have an attentional bias towards threat cues. It is also known, however, that exposure to a subjectively threatening but relatively harmless stimulus tends to lead to a reduction in fear. Accordingly, some authors have hypothesised that high trait anxious individuals have a vigilant-avoidant pattern of visual attention to threatening stimuli. In the present study, 52 high trait anxious and 48 low trait anxious subjects were shown pairs of emotional faces, while their direction of gaze was continuously monitored. For 0-1000 ms, both groups were found to view angry faces more than happy faces. For 2000-3000 ms, however, only high trait anxious subjects averted their gaze from angry faces more than they did from happy faces.

Publishing year

2002

Language

English

Pages

837-844

Publication/Series

Cognition and Emotion

Volume

16

Issue

6

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Psychology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0269-9931