The time-course of threat processing in children: a temporal dissociation between selective attention and behavioral interference

Abstract

Although selective attention to threatening information is an adaptive mechanism, exaggerated attention to threat may be related to anxiety disorders. However, studies examining threat processing in children have obtained mixed findings. In the present study, the time-course of attentional bias for threat and behavioral interference was analyzed in a community sample of 8–18-year-old children (N=33) using a pictorial dot probe task. Threatening and neutral stimuli were shown during 17 ms (masked), 500 ms, and 1250 ms. Results provide preliminary evidence of an automatic attentional bias for threat at 17 ms that persists during later, more controlled stages of information processing (500 and 1250 ms). Furthermore, participants showed a delayed response to threat-containing trials relative to neutral trials in the 500 and 1250 ms condition, which may indicate interference by threat. Together, these results suggest that an attentional bias for threat precedes behavioral interference in children. Furthermore, results indicate that performance in daily life can be temporarily interrupted by the processing of threatening information. In addition, results of earlier studies into selective attention in children using tasks based on behavioral responses may have been confounded by interference effects of threat. For future studies, we recommend to take behavioral interference into account.

Keywords:

• selective attention
• attentional bias
• interference
• threat
• dot probe
• children

Notes

1. The following IAPS pictures were used: Threat: 1120, 1205, 1525, 1932, 2410, 3210, 3230, 3280, 3550, 5950, 6250, 6312, 6350, 6370, 8485, 9050, 9592, 9910, 9911, 9921; OCD: 1280, 2446, 2720, 2750, 3230, 3550, 4613, 7057, 7360, 7710, 8485, 9008, 9050, 9290, 9301, 9373, 9390, 9910, 9911, 9921; Positive: 1920, 1999, 2341, 2395, 7410, 7460, 8120, 8200, 8420, 8461; Neutral: 2038, 2102, 2191, 2396, 2579, 2593, 2620, 2870, 2880, 2980, 5390, 5471, 5500, 5520, 5530, 5533, 5731, 5740, 7010, 7030, 7035, 7036, 7037, 7038, 7039, 7041, 7050, 7056, 7058, 7100, 7130, 7170, 7217, 7242, 7490, 7546, 7590, 7595, 9210, 9360; Practice: 2513, 5532, 7034, 7055, 7080, 7090, 7233, 7235, 7550, 7950.

2. To examine whether the large reaction time variability influenced attentional bias scores, we performed quintile analyses of the reaction times (see Ratcliff, 1979; Van Damme & Crombez, 2009). A repeated measures ANOVA with quintile and stimulus exposure duration as independent variables and attentional bias score as dependent variable revealed no significant main effect of quintile, F(1.6, 52.7)=.53, p>.05, or stimulus exposure duration, F(2, 64)=.30, p>.05, and no significant interaction effect, F(2.1, 67.3)=.61, p>.05. (Mauchly's test indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated for the main effect of quintile, χ ²(9)=131, p<.001, and the interaction effect of quintile by exposure duration, χ ²(35)=297, p<.001. Therefore, degrees of freedom were corrected using Greenhouse-Geisser estimates of sphericity, ϵ=.41 for quintile, and ϵ=.26 for the interaction effect of quintile by exposure duration.) These results indicate that attentional bias scores did not significantly differ for faster and slower reaction times.