Beyond the dot-probe : investigating attention bias in social anxiety using novel techniques
Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The focus of this thesis is on attentional biases for emotional faces within trait \nsocial anxiety. There are two central aims. Firstly, to provide a theoretical expansion \nof what is known about attentional biases in social anxiety, especially regarding the \ntheorised bias-components of facilitated attention toward threat, delayed \ndisengagement away from threat, and attentional avoidance of threat. The second aim \nis to provide an experimental expansion by exploring paradigms that are relatively \nnovel to the field, by using a mixed-method approach across four studies. \nThe first study presents adaptations of the attentional blink task. Between \nthese tasks, processing stages and task-relevance of the emotional faces are \nmanipulated. The second study investigates whether a child-version of the attentional \nblink task can be used to investigate attention bias in child social anxiety. Study three \nmeans to disentangle bias components by measuring eye-movements using a saccadic \ncurvature paradigm and study four explores if anxiety-related sustained attention \ntoward different emotions is reflected in neural activation with a steady-state visual \nevoked potential paradigm. \nUltimately, the findings and the existing literature are brought together under \nthree themes. The first two map onto the thesis aims. Under the theme of components \nof attention bias, mixed support for facilitated attention, delayed disengagement and \nattentional avoidance in social anxiety is offered. The second theme evaluates that, \nwith suggested adjustments, the presented novel techniques have the potential to \nexplore attention bias in social anxiety. The third theme stems from the findings and \nfocuses on how task-relevance of emotion might moderate social anxiety-attention \nlinks. \nTaken together, this thesis extends knowledge of differential information \nprocessing in social anxiety and reveals the potential benefits of using novel \ntechniques.
Author: Cesco Willemse
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2727050839