Threat bias in attention orienting: evidence of specificity in a large community-based study

Preliminary research implicates threat-related attention biases in paediatric anxiety disorders. However, major questions exist concerning diagnostic specificity, effects of symptom-severity levels, and threat-stimulus exposure durations in attention paradigms. This study examines these issues in a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Psychological medicine Vol. 43; no. 4; p. 733
Main Authors:	Salum, G A, Mogg, K, Bradley, B P, Gadelha, A, Pan, P, Tamanaha, A C, Moriyama, T, Graeff-Martins, A S, Jarros, R B, Polanczyk, G, do Rosário, M C, Leibenluft, E, Rohde, L A, Manfro, G G, Pine, D S
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England 01-04-2013
Subjects:	Adult Analysis of Variance Anxiety Disorders - diagnosis Anxiety Disorders - physiopathology Anxiety Disorders - psychology Attention - physiology Child Child Behavior - psychology Child Behavior Disorders - diagnosis Child Behavior Disorders - physiopathology Child Behavior Disorders - psychology Cohort Studies Facial Expression Fear - physiology Female Humans Linear Models Male Neuropsychological Tests Psychiatric Status Rating Scales Reaction Time - physiology Severity of Illness Index
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Summary:	Preliminary research implicates threat-related attention biases in paediatric anxiety disorders. However, major questions exist concerning diagnostic specificity, effects of symptom-severity levels, and threat-stimulus exposure durations in attention paradigms. This study examines these issues in a large, community school-based sample. Method A total of 2046 children (ages 6-12 years) were assessed using the Development and Well Being Assessment (DAWBA), Childhood Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and dot-probe tasks. Children were classified based on presence or absence of 'fear-related' disorders, 'distress-related' disorders, and behavioural disorders. Two dot-probe tasks, which differed in stimulus exposure, assessed attention biases for happy-face and threat-face cues. The main analysis included 1774 children. For attention bias scores, a three-way interaction emerged among face-cue emotional valence, diagnostic group, and internalizing symptom severity (F = 2.87, p < 0.05). This interaction reflected different associations between internalizing symptom severity and threat-related attention bias across diagnostic groups. In children with no diagnosis (n = 1411, mean difference = 11.03, s.e. = 3.47, df = 1, p < 0.001) and those with distress-related disorders (n = 66, mean difference = 10.63, s.e. = 5.24, df = 1, p < 0.05), high internalizing symptoms predicted vigilance towards threat. However, in children with fear-related disorders (n = 86, mean difference = -11.90, s.e. = 5.94, df = 1, p < 0.05), high internalizing symptoms predicted an opposite tendency, manifesting as greater bias away from threat. These associations did not emerge in the behaviour-disorder group (n = 211). The association between internalizing symptoms and biased orienting varies with the nature of developmental psychopathology. Both the form and severity of psychopathology moderates threat-related attention biases in children.
ISSN:	1469-8978
DOI:	10.1017/S0033291712001651