Do emotional stimuli grab attention in typical or anxious observers? (360G-Wellcome-211906_Z_18_Z)

An attentional bias (AB) towards emotional, and particularly threatening stimuli has been robustly demonstrated in anxious observers, with smaller biases in typical populations (Bar-Haim et al, 2007). Moreover, threat-related biases are suggested to occur even when observers are unaware of the threatening stimuli. A key paradigm used to measure AB is the visual probe (VP) paradigm, in both standard (aware), and backward masked presentations. Recent work (with typical populations) has highlighted the importance of controlling for low-level stimulus properties (e.g. luminance contrast), and using stringent measures of awareness (Hedger et al, 2016; Hedger, Adams & Garner, 2015a, 2015b) in order to properly interpret VP data. The current project aims to evaulate AB in anxious and typical observers in three variants of the VP task: a standard VP, and two VP methods that allow us to present threatening stimuli are outside of awareness: backward masking and continuous flash suppresion. Importantly, we will use careful stimulus controls to model the effects of low-level stimulus properties and stimulus awareness. The study will allow us to understand whether typical or anxious observers preferentially attend to threat stimuli during conscious and unconscious presentations. This has important applications for treatment development, such as attention bias modification.