Selective processing of threat-related material by spider phobics in a prose recall task

Abstract

A number of studies have reported that anxious and phobic individuals differ from controls in demonstrating early perceptual pick-up of potentially threatening information. The present study examined the consequences of this attentional bias on the processing and subsequent recall of a passage of text. The results indicated that spider phobics were more likely than non-phobics to recall nonspecific spider-related information contained in the text, and that this preferential recall was maintained even when individuals were encouraged to adopt a different perspective at recall. The findings are contrasted with earlier studies which have indicated impaired recall of threat-related words, following attentional shifts towards those items at presentation.