The Relation of Threat-Related  Attention and Trait Anxiety: The influence of trait anxiety and attentional control  on attentional bias to mildly and highly threatening  pictures in a dot-probe task

Background: Threat-related attentional biases (ABs) in anxiety show considerable heterogeneity; there is evidence for hypervigilance to, and avoidance of threat. Taking the stimulus threat level and attentional control (AC) into account is thought to aid in explaining this heterogeneity. Prior work on the relations between these variables showed inconclusive results. Hypotheses: Trait anxiety levels, AC levels, and their interaction are associated with different patterns of AB scores, depending on the stimulus’s threat level. Methods: Fifty-two participants completed self-report measures of trait anxiety and AC and participated in a dot-probe task with neutral, mild threat, and high threat pictorial stimuli. Hypotheses were tested with rm ANOVAs and post-hoc correlation tests. Results: High trait anxiety was associated with hypervigilant AB to mild threat, but no association with AB to high threat was found. Low AC was related to more avoidance of high threat, but not to AB to mild...Show moreBackground: Threat-related attentional biases (ABs) in anxiety show considerable heterogeneity; there is evidence for hypervigilance to, and avoidance of threat. Taking the stimulus threat level and attentional control (AC) into account is thought to aid in explaining this heterogeneity. Prior work on the relations between these variables showed inconclusive results. Hypotheses: Trait anxiety levels, AC levels, and their interaction are associated with different patterns of AB scores, depending on the stimulus’s threat level. Methods: Fifty-two participants completed self-report measures of trait anxiety and AC and participated in a dot-probe task with neutral, mild threat, and high threat pictorial stimuli. Hypotheses were tested with rm ANOVAs and post-hoc correlation tests. Results: High trait anxiety was associated with hypervigilant AB to mild threat, but no association with AB to high threat was found. Low AC was related to more avoidance of high threat, but not to AB to mild threat. AC did not moderate the relationship between trait anxiety and threat-level dependent AB. Discussion and Conclusions: These findings confirm that threat level influences threat-related ABs in anxiety. While this relationship was not further influenced by individual differences in AC, the role AC on its own plays in threat-level dependent ABs is supported.Show less

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The Relation of Threat-Related Attention and Trait Anxiety: The influence of trait anxiety and attentional control on attentional bias to mildly and highly threatening pictures in a dot-probe task