ERIC Number: EJ947853
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Feb
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-2626
EISSN: N/A
Attention Training and the Threat Bias: An ERP Study
O'Toole, Laura; Dennis, Tracy A.
Brain and Cognition, v78 n1 p63-73 Feb 2012
Anxiety is characterized by exaggerated attention to threat. Several studies suggest that this threat bias plays a causal role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Furthermore, although the threat bias can be reduced in anxious individuals and induced in non-anxious individual, the attentional mechanisms underlying these changes remain unclear. To address this issue, 49 non-anxious adults were randomly assigned to either attentional training toward or training away from threat using a modified version of the dot probe task. Behavioral measures of attentional biases were also generated pre- and post-training using the dot probe task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were generated to threat and non-threat face pairs and probes during pre- and post-training assessments. Effects of training on behavioral measures of the threat bias were significant, but only for those participants showing pre-training biases. Attention training also influenced early spatial attention, as measured by post-training P1 amplitudes to cues. Results illustrate the importance of taking pre-training attention biases in non-anxious individuals into account when evaluating the effects of attention training and tracking physiological changes in attention following training. (Contains 4 tables and 5 figures.)
Descriptors: Anxiety Disorders, Cognitive Processes, Anxiety, Brain Hemisphere Functions, Diagnostic Tests, Role, Fear, Attribution Theory, Adults, Attention, Training, Cues, Task Analysis, Measures (Individuals), Behavior Problems, Physiology
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A