Attentional biases for threat after fear-related autobiographical recall

Previous studies suggested that affective state could enhance stimulus salience and modulate attention allocation for mood-congruent information, but contrasting data have been reported on the effects of mood induction on attentional biases for threat (ABTs) in non-clinical individuals.

We aimed to assess whether laboratory-induced negative mood can increase individuals' tendency to allocate attention on threatening stimuli, thus determining a difficulty in attentional disengagement from threat. We also aimed at assessing whether level of trait anxiety could modulate the effect of mood induction on attentional biases.

We used an autobiographical episode recall procedure for mood induction (fear, happiness and neutral episode recall), and an exogenous cueing task with threatening and non-threatening images to assess attentional biases in 120 undergraduate students.

Participants showed a significant difficulty in disengaging attention from threat after recalling fear-related episodes, independently from their trait anxiety level.

These findings clarify that the ABTs are not exclusive to anxiety disorders or high trait anxiety individuals, and could also arise in non-clinical individuals in a fearful context.