Department of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Cogn Emot. 2011 Aug;25(5):805-17. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2010.515065. Epub 2011 May 24.
Attentional bias to threatening visual stimuli (words or pictures) is commonly present in anxious individuals, but not in non-anxious people. There is evidence to show that attentional bias to threat can be induced in all individuals when threat is imposed by threat not of symbolic nature, but by cues that predict aversive stimulation (loud noise or electric shock). However, it is not known whether attentional bias in such situations is still influenced by individual differences in anxiety. This question was addressed in two experiments using a spatial cuing task in which visual cues predicted the occurrence of an aversive event consisting of a loud human scream. Speeded attentional engagement to threat cues was positively correlated with trait anxiety in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 showed that speeded attentional engagement was present only in participants selected for high anxiety but not in low-anxious participants. In both experiments, slower disengagement from threat cues was found in all participants, irrespective of their trait anxiety levels.
注意偏向于威胁性视觉刺激（单词或图片）在焦虑个体中很常见，但在非焦虑个体中则不然。有证据表明，当威胁不是象征性的，而是由预测不愉快刺激（大声噪音或电击）的线索引起时，所有个体都可以产生对威胁的注意偏向。然而，目前尚不清楚在这种情况下，注意偏向是否仍然受到焦虑个体差异的影响。本研究通过空间线索任务来解决这个问题，在该任务中，视觉线索预测了一个不愉快事件的发生，该事件由一声响亮的人类尖叫组成。在实验 1 中，对威胁线索的快速注意参与与特质焦虑呈正相关。实验 2 表明，快速注意参与仅存在于高焦虑组的参与者中，而不在低焦虑组的参与者中。在这两个实验中，所有参与者都发现对威胁线索的反应较慢，而与他们的特质焦虑水平无关。
