ABSTRACT

Attentional biases, consisting of a preferential processing of threatening stimuli, are considered to be either a consequence of anxiety, or an important feature in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders. However, these relationships have received empirical support mostly from studies with adult samples. Therefore, the present study describes the development of a dot-probe task suitable for measuring attentional biases in children aged 5 to 11. We used this task in the first experiment to investigate the association between high levels of anxiety and attentional biases in younger children (5-9 years) and in older ones (10-11 years). Results emphasize the possibility that attentional biases might also take the form of threat avoidance, regardless of children�s age and anxiety level. In the second experiment we used two different stimuli exposure times: 1000 milliseconds and 750 milliseconds and, despite this manipulation, results indicated a mixed pattern of avoidance and vigilance similar to the one found in the first experiment.

KEYWORDS: attentional biases, dot-probe task, anxiety, children.

PAGES:309-326