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Updated: May 28, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
Trait anxiety and the dynamics of attentional control
Roman Osinsky1, Helge Gebhardt, Nina Alexander
1Institute of Psychology, Julius Maximilians University, Marcusstr. 9-11, 97070 Würzburg, Germany. roman.osinsky@uni-wuerzburg.de
Abstract:
According to recent theoretical approaches dispositional anxiety is fundamentally linked to neural mechanisms of cognitive control (Braver et al., 2007; Eysenck et al., 2007). The present study was conducted to further investigate this topic by focusing on the relation between trait anxiety, conflict-processing and dynamic adjustments in attentional allocation. Participants completed a modified version of the face-word Stroop task while an electroencephalogram was recorded. We analyzed behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of conflict processing and conflict-driven modulations in target and distractor processing. Anxiety was not related to general conflict-sensitivity but to individual differences in conflict-driven adjustments in attentional allocation: following a high level of stimulus-response conflict, highly anxious participants allocated more attentional resources to the processing of predominantly task-relevant information and withdrew attention from the processing of predominantly task-irrelevant information. Thus, trait anxiety appears to be closely related to individual differences in dynamic adjustments of attentional control.
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