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Anxiety and attentional bias in preschool-aged children: an eyetracking study

Dodd, H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1446-5338, Hudson, J., Williams, T., Morris, T., Lazarus, R. and Byrow, Y. (2015) Anxiety and attentional bias in preschool-aged children: an eyetracking study. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 43 (6). pp. 1055-1065. ISSN 0091-0627

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To link to this item DOI: 10.1007/s10802-014-9962-x

Abstract/Summary

Extensive research has examined attentional bias for threat in anxious adults and school-aged children but it is unclear when this anxiety-related bias is first established. This study uses eyetracking technology to assess attentional bias in a sample of 83 children aged 3 or 4 years. Of these, 37 (19 female) met criteria for an anxiety disorder and 46 (30 female) did not. Gaze was recorded during a free-viewing task with angry-neutral face pairs presented for 1250 ms. There was no indication of between-group differences in threat bias, with both anxious and non-anxious groups showing vigilance for angry faces as well as longer dwell times to angry over neutral faces. Importantly, however, the anxious participants spent significantly less time looking at the faces overall, when compared to the non-anxious group. The results suggest that both anxious and non-anxious preschool-aged children preferentially attend to threat but that anxious children may be more avoidant of faces than non-anxious children.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Divisions:Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Anxiety and Depression in Young People (AnDY)
ID Code:38941
Publisher:Springer

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