PHOBIA-RELATED COGNITIVE BIAS FOR PICTORIAL AND LINGUISTIC STIMULI

The purpose of this study was to examine whether anxiety-related cogni tive bias for threat is stronger for threatening pictures than for thr eatening words. Spider-phobic participants (n = 31) and control partic ipants (n = 33) performed a pictorial and linguistic spider Stroop tas k. Spider-phobic participants showed a marked bias for threat. However , this bias was similar for pictures: and for words, although the spid er-phobic group evaluated the pictures as being more aversive. The res ults suggest that automatic processing of threatening information in p eople with phobias is triggered in aa on-off fashion, independent of s ubjective threat of the stimuli. This lack of distinction in automatic processing of weak and strong predictors of danger may be fundamental to the irrational nature of anxiety disorders.