Bp. Bradley et al., ATTENTIONAL BIAS FOR THREATENING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS IN ANXIETY - MANIPULATION OF STIMULUS-DURATION, Cognition and emotion, 12(6), 1998, pp. 737-753
The study investigated the time course of attentional biases for emoti
onal facial expressions in high and low trait anxious individuals. Thr
eat, happy, and neutral face stimuli were presented at two exposure du
rations, 500 and 1250msec, in a forced-choice reaction time (RT) versi
on of the dot probe task. There was clear evidence of an attentional b
ias favouring threatening facial expressions, but not emotional faces
in general, in high trait anxiety. Increased dysphoria was associated
with a tendency to avoid happy faces. No evidence was found of avoidan
ce following initial vigilance for threat in this nonclinical sample.
Methodological and theoretical implications of the results are discuss
ed.