Eye-movement evidence of the time-course of attentional bias for threatening pictures in test-anxious students

ABSTRACT

Protocols for measuring attentional bias to threat in test-anxiety, a special form of trait-anxiety, are rarely found in the literature. In our eye-tracking study, we introduced a new protocol, and studied the time-course of attention to test-related pictures with varying threat levels in 22 high test-anxious (HTA) and 22 low test-anxious (LTA) subjects. To determine whether attentional bias to test-related pictures is due to test-anxiety and not to state-anxiety, we also included a third group of 22 subjects with high state-anxiety but low test-anxiety (HSA). The subjects completed a free viewing task (FVT) in which high threat-neutral (HT-N) and low threat-neutral (LT-N) picture pairs were presented for 3 s. The results demonstrated that: (1) HTA subjects showed initial orienting to LT pictures, early attentional engagement with HT pictures later on and avoidance of HT pictures at the very end; (2) LTA subjects showed initial orienting to HT pictures and maintenance of attention on them later on; while (3) HSA subjects showed an initial orientation towards LT pictures and maintenance of attention on LT and HT pictures later on. These results suggest that, (high) test-anxiety is also prone to attentional bias towards test-related threat stimuli. Implications for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Test-anxiety
• time-course
• attentional bias
• vigilance
• avoidance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Spielberger's state–trait model of anxiety made the distinction between anxiety as a personality trait and anxiety as a personality state. Thus, trait-anxiety refers to a stable disposition to react with anxiety across varying situations, whereas state-anxiety refers to a transitory emotional state of tension and arousal determined by the interaction between the person's trait and the present situation (Zeidner, 1998).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Key Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu [Code: 2015ZSJD001-01] and Jiangsu Province Postgraduates Research and Innovation Plan [Code: CXZZ_0171].