Attentional bias towards angry faces in childhood anxiety disorders

J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2010 Jun;41(2):158-64. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.12.001. Epub 2009 Dec 28.

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Analysis of Variance
  • Anger / physiology*
  • Anxiety Disorders / diagnosis*
  • Anxiety Disorders / psychology
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Bias*
  • Child
  • Face*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual / physiology
  • Photic Stimulation / methods
  • Reaction Time / physiology