Attentional bias to threat and emotional response to biological challenge

Attentional bias towards threat reliably correlates with clinical anxiety status as well as elevated trait anxiety. Although such findings have led many to posit a potential causative or predictive role of threat-biased attentional processes on anxiety problems, little informative research exists. The present investigation was designed to address the role of threat-biased attentional processes on emotional/fearful responding. Eighty-seven participants provided baseline measures of anxiety vulnerability (i.e., anxiety sensitivity; unmasked/masked emotional Stroop task indices) and then underwent biological challenge procedures (inhalations of 20% carbon dioxide (CO2)-enriched air). Following challenge, participants completed measures of emotional response. Regression analyses indicated that both unmasked and masked attentional bias indices significantly predicted emotional responding above and beyond anxiety sensitivity. Exploratory analyses also revealed a gender effect, with prediction of emotional response largely attributable to females. These findings support attentional bias towards threat as a relatively independent factor predictive of emotional responding.