Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Anxiety: Overview

Anxiety: Overview

Anxiety is a common mental disorder featuring excessive worry, fear, and apprehension, significantly affecting daily life. People with anxiety disorders experience persistent and intense anxiety, interrupting their everyday functioning.
Individuals with anxiety often experience a range of physical and emotional symptoms, including sweating, trembling, tachycardia, and disturbances in sleep patterns. These symptoms vary in intensity and frequency but are generally disruptive and distressing.

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...

Behavior Therapy

Behavior Therapy

Behavior therapy incorporates diverse techniques rooted in classical conditioning principles to address maladaptive behaviors and anxiety disorders. These methods aim to reduce avoidance behaviors, foster adaptive coping mechanisms, and alter associations between stimuli and responses, making them effective in a wide range of therapeutic contexts.
Exposure therapy is a cornerstone of behavioral treatment for anxiety disorders. It involves systematic exposure to feared stimuli, either in real...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

There Is More Than Meets the Eye: The Dual Role of Perception in Shaping Color Lexicons.

Topics in cognitive science·2026

Same author

Benefits and harms of ADHD interventions: umbrella review and platform for shared decision making.

BMJ (Clinical research ed.)·2025

Same author

Measuring working memory in contexts of high adversity: Using the digit span in North Kivu.

African journal of psychological assessment·2025

Same author

Complementary, alternative and integrative medicine for autism: an umbrella review and online platform.

Nature human behaviour·2025

Same author

Reconceptualizing Metacognitive Experience in Dual-Process Reasoning: The Role of Emotion in Triggering Deliberation.

Cognitive science·2025

Same author

A left-to-right bias in number-space mapping across ages and cultures.

Nature communications·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 26, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

Published on: October 19, 2014

Trait anxiety focuses spatial attention.

Serge Caparos¹, Karina J Linnell

¹Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, England. s.caparos@gold.ac.uk

Emotion (Washington, D.C.)

|December 14, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Trait anxiety enhances spatial attention, improving perceptual selection. However, it did not affect post-perceptual selection, possibly due to high task demands. This suggests anxiety may narrow focus.

More Related Videos

Real-time fMRI Biofeedback Targeting the Orbitofrontal Cortex for Contamination Anxiety

Real-time fMRI Biofeedback Targeting the Orbitofrontal Cortex for Contamination Anxiety

Published on: January 20, 2012

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Published on: January 23, 2017

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 26, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

Published on: October 19, 2014

Real-time fMRI Biofeedback Targeting the Orbitofrontal Cortex for Contamination Anxiety

Real-time fMRI Biofeedback Targeting the Orbitofrontal Cortex for Contamination Anxiety

Published on: January 20, 2012

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Published on: January 23, 2017

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Psychophysiology

Background:

Conflicting findings exist regarding trait anxiety's impact on selective attention.
Trait anxiety may differentially affect various levels of selective attention.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether trait anxiety influences spatial attention and post-perceptual selection distinctly.
To test the hypothesis that trait anxiety improves spatial attention but impairs post-perceptual selection.

Main Methods:

Utilized an adapted flanker task to differentiate between spatial and post-perceptual selection.
Measured trait anxiety levels in participants.

Main Results:

Trait anxiety significantly improved spatial attention.
No significant effect of trait anxiety was observed on post-perceptual selection.
The null finding for post-perceptual selection might be attributed to high perceptual load.

Conclusions:

Trait anxiety appears to enhance spatial attention, potentially by narrowing focus.
Anxiety's effect on attention may involve reduced perceptual resources or increased cognitive engagement.