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.
Department/s
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