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Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
Anxiety-related bias in the classification of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions
Anne Richards1, Christopher C French, Andrew J Calder
1School of Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London, Bloomsbury, England.
Abstract:
High- and low-trait socially anxious individuals classified the emotional expressions of photographic quality continua of interpolated ("morphed") facial images that were derived from combining 6 basic prototype emotional expressions to various degrees, with the 2 adjacent emotions arranged in an emotion hexagon. When fear was 1 of the 2 component emotions, the high-trait group displayed enhanced sensitivity for fear. In a 2nd experiment where a mood manipulation was incorporated, again, the high-trait group exhibited enhanced sensitivity for fear. The low-trait group was sensitive for happiness in the control condition. The mood-manipulated group had increased sensitivity for anger expressions, and trait anxiety did not moderate these effects. Interpretations of the results related to the classification of fearful expressions are discussed.
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