Looking out for danger: An attentional bias towards spatially predictable threatening stimuli

Attentional bias to threat is well established, however, the influence of spatial predictability on this attentional bias has never been investigated. Here we investigated how threat affects attentional capture and disengagement when its spatial location is predictable. Using a visual search paradigm, participants were required to identify a target inside one of a variable number of colored circles. One color (Conditioned Stimulus, CS+) was fear-conditioned using an electrocutaneous stimulus at tolerance level. In the experimental group the CS+ was made spatially predictable (occurred more often at one location in the visual display), while this was not the case in the control group. Results showed no complete automatic capture of attention by the CS+, but the experimental group did show more prioritization of the CS+ and less difficulty to disengage from the CS+ than the control group. Of further importance was the finding that the experimental group also attended to the location that was predictive of the CS+, even when no CS+ was presented. Findings are discussed in terms the effects of predictability on anxiety.