Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Jan;30(1):14-21.
doi: 10.1002/da.21986. Epub 2012 Jul 19.

Attention bias of anxious youth during extended exposure of emotional face pairs: an eye-tracking study

Tomer Shechner  1 , Johanna M Jarcho, Jennifer C Britton, Ellen Leibenluft, Daniel S Pine, Eric E Nelson
Affiliations

Attention bias of anxious youth during extended exposure of emotional face pairs: an eye-tracking study

Tomer Shechner et al. Depress Anxiety. 2013 Jan.

Abstract

Background: Previous studies demonstrate that anxiety is characterized by biased attention toward threats, typically measured by differences in motor reaction time to threat and neutral cues. Using eye-tracking methodology, the current study measured attention biases in anxious and nonanxious youth, using unrestricted free viewing of angry, happy, and neutral faces.

Methods: Eighteen anxious and 15 nonanxious youth (8-17 years old) passively viewed angry-neutral and happy-neutral face pairs for 10 s while their eye movements were recorded.

Results: Anxious youth displayed a greater attention bias toward angry faces than nonanxious youth, and this bias occurred in the earliest phases of stimulus presentation. Specifically, anxious youth were more likely to direct their first fixation to angry faces, and they made faster fixations to angry than neutral faces.

Conclusions: Consistent with findings from earlier, reaction-time studies, the current study shows that anxious youth, like anxious adults, exhibit biased orienting to threat-related stimuli. This study adds to the existing literature by documenting that threat biases in eye-tracking patterns are manifest at initial attention orienting.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest. No conflict of interest was declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Proportions of first fixation to angry and happy stimuli in emotional-neutral pairs among anxious and nonanxious youth.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Latencies of first fixation to angry-neutral pairs and happy-neutral pairs among anxious and nonanxious youth.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bar-Haim Y, Lamy D, Pergamin L, et al. Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: a meta-analytic study. Psychol Bull. 2007;133(1):1–24. - PubMed
    1. Mogg K, Bradley BP. A cognitive-motivational analysis of anxiety. Behav Res Ther. 1998;36(9):809–848. - PubMed
    1. Cisler JM, Koster EH. Mechanisms of attentional biases towards threat in anxiety disorders: an integrative review. Clin Psychol Rev. 2010;30(2):203–216. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pine DS, Helfinstein SM, Bar-Haim Y, et al. Challenges in developing novel treatments for childhood disorders: lessons from research on anxiety. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2009;34(1):213–228. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Puliafico A, Kendall P. Threat-related attentional bias in anxious youth: a review. Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev. 2006;9(3):162–180. - PubMed

Publication types