ABSTRACT

Attentional biases have been suggested as an important feature in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Researchers have developed several paradigms of attentional training intended to reduce attentional biases. Data are scarce but seem to indicate that a daily training for 5 to 7 days modifies the attentional pattern of participants. It is unclear to what extent can these procedures reduce self reported anxiety. They might decrease the person’s vulnerability to stress. Therefore it seems important to investigate the effects of attentional training in childhood. The present explorative study looks into the effects of an attentional training procedure on attentional biases of children towards positive and negative stimuli, as well as on sub-clinical anxiety level. Results illustrate that it is possible to use an attentional training procedure to reduce vigilance toward negative information as well as avoidance of positive information, but such an intervention did not generate changes in anxiety levels.

KEYWORDS: attentional biases, attentional training, anxiety, children.

PAGES:63-78