This study was investigating the diffrences in reactions to angry and neutral stimulus at 100ms, 500ms and 900ms and also if responses were faster if the probe appeared in the emotional or neutral location. It was predicted that high anxious participants would be quicker to attend to angry faces because they are threatening and so we would observe a main effect of anxiety. If anxiety is related only to certain stages of attention then we expect anxiety and presentation time to interact with high anxiety and low anxiety groups differing in some stages and not others. The second prediction is supported as anxiety and presentation time interact. There is a difference in the allocation of attention by high and low anxiety groups at some points
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We had a undergraduate sample which could be seen as a limitation as previous literature has noted males and females respon to faces and threat differently as well as students possibly being more anxious then the general population. If our low anxiety group is still more highly anxious then the general population that would affect our results (Cooper & Langton, 2006). This could be addressed by having a diffeent sample or by having a sample of people from the general population to compare results against. A limitation of our study is that we did not look at anxiety levels longer than 900ms. There may be an important change in attention after 900ms that could provided us with interesting information on the effects of anxiety. This could be addressed in future studies by having longer presentation times such as …show more content…
To do this participants completed a dot probe task where participants had to respond to a horizontal or vertical set of dots on computers which appeared after a angry or neutral stimuli. It was found participants in low anxious groups responded faster to threatening stimuli at 100ms but slower at 500ms and 900ms compared to high anxious participants who responded slower to 100ms and faster to 500ms and 900ms. The main implications of the findings were individuals initially attend to threat, but this is often followed by attention avoidance of threat. In our experiment, we are interested in attention biases to threat. We have already seen in labs that biases can change over time – people may show vigilance to the angry face at some SOAs, but avoidance of the angry face at others. Here, we are also interested in anxiety: do participants with higher levels of anxiety show a different pattern of bias across time that those with lower anxiety? If so, this indicates that the way that anxious individuals attend to emotional information is different than non-anxious individuals. To assess this idea, we had participants complete a dot-probe task. Each participant was randomly assigned to one condition, where they viewed emotional and neutral faces for either 100, 500 or 900 milliseconds (presentation time or SOA). Participants also filled out a measure of anxiety, where scores range from 1 (low anxiety) to
We had a undergraduate sample which could be seen as a limitation as previous literature has noted males and females respon to faces and threat differently as well as students possibly being more anxious then the general population. If our low anxiety group is still more highly anxious then the general population that would affect our results (Cooper & Langton, 2006). This could be addressed by having a diffeent sample or by having a sample of people from the general population to compare results against. A limitation of our study is that we did not look at anxiety levels longer than 900ms. There may be an important change in attention after 900ms that could provided us with interesting information on the effects of anxiety. This could be addressed in future studies by having longer presentation times such as …show more content…
To do this participants completed a dot probe task where participants had to respond to a horizontal or vertical set of dots on computers which appeared after a angry or neutral stimuli. It was found participants in low anxious groups responded faster to threatening stimuli at 100ms but slower at 500ms and 900ms compared to high anxious participants who responded slower to 100ms and faster to 500ms and 900ms. The main implications of the findings were individuals initially attend to threat, but this is often followed by attention avoidance of threat. In our experiment, we are interested in attention biases to threat. We have already seen in labs that biases can change over time – people may show vigilance to the angry face at some SOAs, but avoidance of the angry face at others. Here, we are also interested in anxiety: do participants with higher levels of anxiety show a different pattern of bias across time that those with lower anxiety? If so, this indicates that the way that anxious individuals attend to emotional information is different than non-anxious individuals. To assess this idea, we had participants complete a dot-probe task. Each participant was randomly assigned to one condition, where they viewed emotional and neutral faces for either 100, 500 or 900 milliseconds (presentation time or SOA). Participants also filled out a measure of anxiety, where scores range from 1 (low anxiety) to