Anticipatory attentional avoidance in learned threat associations

The processing of threatening content tends to take priority over neutral or other emotional stimuli. Compared to other attentional biases (in response to threat), less research has been dedicated to understanding anticipatory attentional avoidance, and existing studies on this topic have yielded mixed results. In this study, we investigated anticipatory attentional avoidance, focusing on how predictive cues associated with threatening stimuli influence attentional processing before the actual threat appears. We used a cued visual probe task, in which a neutral cue (onset times: 100, 500, or 1000ms) predicted the location of a threatening stimulus. Across two experiments, we examined both behavioral and eye-tracking measures to capture avoidance patterns. In Experiment 1 (behavioral: N = 33; eye-tracking: N = 23), predictive cues appeared in the same location as the subsequent target (i.e., in the corners of the screen), while in Experiment 2 (behavioral: N = 51; eye-tracking: N = 22), predictive cues were presented centrally, separating cue and target locations. Our results showed that participants associated the threatening content with the predictive cue and learned to avoid attending to the spatial position of the threat-related stimuli. This avoidance was reflected in slower reaction times and gaze patterns that shifted away from the threat-predictive cues during presentation, particularly at longer cue presentation times. However, we found no differences in the onset of gaze shifts to the target, suggesting that avoidance occurs primarily during early anticipatory stages. These findings suggest that anticipatory attentional avoidance may appear as a distinct process that could emerge in response to learned threat associations.