Variability of attention bias in socially anxious adolescents: differences in fixation duration toward adult and adolescent face stimuli

ABSTRACT

Prior research on attention bias in anxious youth, often utilising a visual dot probe task, has yielded inconsistent findings, which may be due to how bias is assessed and/or variability in the phenomenon. The present study utilises eye gaze tracking to assess attention bias in socially anxious adolescents, and explores several methodological and within-subject factors that may contribute to variability in attention bias. Attention bias to threat was measured in forty-two treatment-seeking adolescents (age 12–16 years) diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder. Bias scores toward emotional stimuli (vigilant attention) and bias scores away from emotional stimuli (avoidant attention) were explored. Bias scores changed between vigilance and avoidance within individuals and over the course of stimulus presentation. These differences were not associated with participant characteristics nor with self-reported social anxiety symptoms. However, clinician rated severity of social anxiety, explained a significant proportion of variance in the bias scores for adult, but not the adolescent, stimuli. Variability in attention bias among socially anxious adolescents is common and varies as a function of stimulus duration and type. Results may inform stimulus selection for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Attention bias
• social anxiety disorder
• adolescents
• eye-tracking

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Mental Health Grant # R34 MH096915 awarded to Thomas H. Ollendick. We acknowledge the NIMH for its support and the many colleagues who assisted us with various aspects of the present research. We also thank the adolescents and their parents who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent: All study procedures were approved by the institutional review board for human subject research. All participants provided informed consent.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, Grant # R34 MH096915 [PI: Ollendick].