Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 20, 2026

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality
Published on: August 9, 2010
Dot probe performance in two specific phobias
Objectives:
The present study applied MacLeod, Mathews & Tata's (1986) dot probe attentional deployment methodology to individuals with specific phobias.
Design:
Attentional deployment towards spider-related, blood-related, positive, negative, and neutral words was examined.
Method:
Individuals with either spider phobia (N = 13) or blood/injury phobia (N = 14) and non-anxious controls (N = 14) completed the dot probe attentional deployment task.
Results:
Individuals with specific phobias did not demonstrate an attentional bias towards phobia-related stimuli relevant to their particular fears.
Conclusion:
Semantic-based information processing paradigms may not be sufficiently potent to demonstrate biased performance towards threatening stimuli in individuals with mild specific phobias who are otherwise healthy.

