Some methodological issues in assessing attentional biases for threateningfaces in anxiety: a replication study using a modified version of the probe detection task

Various versions of the probe detection task have been developed to assess attentional biases in anxiety and there is debate about their relative meri ts in terms of reliability and sensitivity to such biases. The present stud y used a pictorial version of the probe detection task to examine attention al biases for emotional facial expressions. The main aims were (1) to see i f our previous finding of greater vigilance for threatening faces in high t han low trait anxiety could be replicated [Bradley, B.P.: Mogg, K., Falla, S. J., & Hamilton, L. R. (1998). Attentional bias for threatening facial ex pressions in anxiety: manipulation of stimulus duration. Cognition and Emot ion, in press] and (2) to examine whether the same pattern of results and a similar effect size, would be obtained using a 'probe position' task (i.e. where is the probe?), rather than the 'probe classification' task (i.e. wh at is the type of the probe?) used by Bradley et al. (1998). The probe posi tion task produced similar results to those obtained from the probe classif ication task, so providing further evidence of an anxiety-related attention al bias for threatening faces. Results also indicated that, for non-clinica l participants, the probe position task yielded faster overall RTs, fewer e rrors and a similar effect size, compared with the probe classification tas k. Implications for the assessment of attentional biases in non-clinical an d clinical samples are discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.