Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: The high prevalence rate and associated costs of anxiety disorders have resulted in increasing research attention on the role of attentional bias in anxiety. Although seven literature reviews and meta-analyses are devoted to attentional bias, none of them consider the methodological aspects of the studies. This article reviews the literature to provide a methodological user guide for researchers. First, we describe common reaction time (RT) tasks and review the evidence for attentional bias. Second, we evaluate the methods of studying attentional bias and make recommendations to address the following limitations: the (a) seemingly poor psychometric properties of RT tasks, (b) inappropriate practice of dichotomizing continuous variables, (c) improper handling of RT distributions, and (d) use of the mean as a summary statistic
Author: Peter Chew
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2751544307