Anxiety-linked biases in attention to cues signalling threat: Reliable individual differences across three anxiety domains.

Cognitive models of anxiety vulnerability and psychopathology have proposed that individual differences in anxiety are characterised by biases in attentional responding to threat valenced information. Traditional approaches used to examine these biases have measured selective attention to stimuli that represent threats, such as pictures of negative scenes, angry faces, or feared animals. Though these approaches have repeatedly yielded evidence of these effects the measurement reliability of these approaches has been poor, limiting the confidence with which hypotheses can be tested. Recent research has demonstrated that biased attention to cues signalling imminent threat can be measured with acceptable reliability, suggesting a credible avenue for investigating anxiety-linked differences in attentional processing of threat valenced information. However, the relation between this process and anxiety vulnerability has not been tested. The present study conducted three experiments that recruited participants who varied in trait and state anxiety (N = 134), social anxiety (N = 122), or spider fear (N = 131) to complete an assessment of selective attention to cues indicating the location of threat valenced stimuli. Analyses revealed each anxiety domain to be associated with attentional vigilance, or avoidance, of threat cues and the reliability of selective attention indices to be acceptable (r-split-half = .69 - .81). The findings demonstrate multiple anxiety domains are characterised by biased attentional responding to cues signalling threat and that such biases can be measured reliably. Implications for theories of anxiety-linked attention processing and further avenues for investigating the bias, and its relation to anxiety vulnerability, are discussed

Social activity promotes resilience against loneliness in depressed individuals: A study over 14-days of physical isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia

Loneliness is a subjectively perceived state of social isolation that is associated with negative emotional, cognitive, and physical health outcomes. Physical distancing and shelter-in-place public health responses designed to curb COVID-19 transmission has led to concerns over elevated risk of loneliness. Given that physical isolation does not necessitate social isolation in the age of digital communication, this study investigated the relationship between the frequency of social interaction and loneliness over a two-week period in people engaging in physical distancing, and examined whether this relationship was moderated by physical isolation level, age, or depression. A self-selected sample of N = 469 individuals across Australia who were engaged in physically distanced living completed daily surveys for 14-days during April to June of 2020. Multilevel modelling showed that more frequent social interaction with close, but not intermediate or distant contacts, was uniquely associated with lower loneliness. In addition, being younger, more depressed, more anxious, or having a mental health condition diagnosis (past or present) were also independently associated with higher loneliness. Critically, depression was the only significant moderator of the relationship between social interaction and loneliness over time, where more frequent social interaction with close contacts buffered against loneliness over time in high depression individuals only. The findings suggest that encouraging social activity with close contacts may promote resilience against loneliness in individuals with elevated depression symptoms

Reliability and Convergence of Approach/Avoidance Bias Assessment Tasks in the Food Consumption Domain

Data and materials for: Reliability and Convergence of Approach/Avoidance Bias Assessment Tasks in the Food Consumption Domai

A serial mediation model of attentional engagement with thin bodies on body dissatisfaction: The role of appearance comparisons and rumination

The present study examined the associations among biased attentional responding to thin-ideal bodies, appearance comparisons, eating disorder-specific rumination, and body dissatisfaction. Sixty-seven females completed an attentional task capable of independently assessing biased attentional engagement with, and biased attentional disengagement from, images of thin-ideal bodies relative to images of non-thin bodies. Self-report measures of the other relevant constructs were also taken. Results revealed that a heightened tendency to engage in appearance comparisons was predicted by increased attentional engagement with thin-ideal bodies but not by impaired attentional disengagement from thin-ideal bodies. Moreover, a serial mediation analysis revealed that increased attentional engagement with thin-ideal bodies was associated with greater appearance comparison, which in turn was associated with greater eating disorder-specific rumination and consequently greater body dissatisfaction. The current findings suggest that increased attentional engagement with thin-ideal bodies might represent a pathway to body dissatisfaction, mediated by greater appearance comparison and eating-disorder specific rumination

Assessing anxiety-linked impairment in attentional control without eye-tracking: The masked-target antisaccade task

Contemporary cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing propose that heightened levels of anxiety vulnerability are associated with a decreasing ability to inhibit the allocation of attention toward task-irrelevant information. Existing performance-based research has most often used eye-movement assessment variants of the antisaccade paradigm to demonstrate such effects. Critically however, eye-movement assessment methods are limited by expense, the need for expert training in administration, and limited mobility and scalability. These barriers have likely led to researchers using suboptimal methods of assessing the relationship between attentional control and anxiety vulnerability. The present study examined the capacity for a non-eye-movement based variant of the antisaccade task, the masked-target antisaccade task (Guitton et al., 1985), to detect anxiety-linked differences in attentional control. Participants (N = 342) completed an assessment of anxiety vulnerability and performed the masked-target antisaccade task in an online assessment session. Greater levels of anxiety vulnerability predicted poorer performance on the task, consistent with findings observed from eye-movement methods and with cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing. Result also revealed the task to have high internal reliability. Our findings indicate the masked-target antisaccade task provides a psychometrically reliable, low-cost, mobile, and scalable assessment of anxiety-linked differences in attentional control

Assessing anxiety-linked impairment in attentional control without eye-tracking: the masked-target antisaccade task

Contemporary cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing propose that heightened levels of anxiety vulnerability are associated with a decreasing ability to inhibit the allocation of attention towards task-irrelevant information. Existing performance-based research has most often used eye-movement assessment variants of the antisaccade paradigm to demonstrate such effects. Critically, however, eye-movement assessment methods are limited by expense, the need for expert training in administration, and limited mobility and scalability. These barriers have likely led to researchers’ use of suboptimal methods of assessing the relationship between attentional control and anxiety vulnerability. The present study examined the capacity for a non-eye-movement-based variant of the antisaccade task, the masked-target antisaccade task (Guitton et al., 1985), to detect anxiety-linked differences in attentional control. Participants (N = 342) completed an assessment of anxiety vulnerability and performed the masked-target antisaccade task in an online assessment session. Greater levels of anxiety vulnerability predicted poorer performance on the task, consistent with findings observed from eye-movement methods and with cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing. Results also revealed the task to have high internal reliability. Our findings indicate that the masked-target antisaccade task provides a psychometrically reliable, low-cost, mobile, and scalable assessment of anxiety-linked differences in attentional control