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  • Title: Attentional bias towards angry faces in childhood anxiety disorders.
    Author: Waters AM, Henry J, Mogg K, Bradley BP, Pine DS.
    Journal: J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry; 2010 Jun; 41(2):158-64. PubMed ID: 20060097.
    Abstract:
    OBJECTIVE: To examine attentional bias towards angry and happy faces in 8-12 year old children with anxiety disorders (n=29) and non-anxious controls (n=24). METHOD: Children completed a visual-probe task in which pairs of angry/neutral and happy/neutral faces were displayed for 500ms and were replaced by a visual probe in the spatial location of one of the faces. RESULTS: Children with more severe anxiety showed an attentional bias towards angry relative to neutral faces, compared with anxious children who had milder anxiety and non-anxious control children, both of whom did not show an attentional bias for angry faces. Unexpectedly, all groups showed an attentional bias towards happy faces relative to neutral ones. CONCLUSIONS: Anxiety symptom severity increases attention to threat stimuli in anxious children. This association may be due to differing threat appraisal processes or emotion regulation strategies.
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