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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
08:25

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

Published on: October 19, 2014

Anxiety-related biases in children's avoidant responses to a masked angry face

Jennifer Y F Lau1, Essi M Viding

  • 1MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK. lauj@mail.nih.gov

Behaviour Research and Therapy
|September 30, 2006
PubMed

Insights

Children with higher anxiety scores avoided cues linked to threats. This study shows anxious children learn to avoid stimuli associated with negative experiences, impacting behavior.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

  • Anxious children often exhibit escape and withdrawal behaviors when facing threats.
  • Experimental research on avoidance behaviors in anxious children is limited.
  • Understanding avoidance is crucial for anxiety disorder treatment.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if children with high anxiety display more avoidance responses.
  • To examine avoidance of a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS+) paired with a threat (UCS).
  • To assess stimulus-response learning in relation to anxiety levels.

Main Methods:

  • Thirty-six 10-11 year-olds participated in a card selection task.
  • One card color (CS+) was paired with a masked angry face (UCS).
  • The other card color (CS-) was paired with a masked neutral face.

Main Results:

  • Children with higher anxiety scores tended to choose the card associated with the neutral face (CS-).
  • This avoidance tendency showed signs of gradual emergence across trials.
  • Results indicate a link between anxiety and learning to avoid CS+-UCS associations.

Conclusions:

  • Anxiety in children is associated with learned avoidance of threat-related cues.
  • Findings suggest that anxiety influences stimulus-response learning, promoting avoidance behaviors.
  • This has implications for understanding and treating anxiety in pediatric populations.

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