Dot-probe evaluation of cognitive processing biases in patients with panic disorder: a failure to replicate and...

A number of cognitive psychology paradigms have been used to demonstrate that panic disorder patients selectively process stimuli that are related to themes of physical threat and catastrophe. The present investigation was an attempt to replicate and extend initial findings obtained with the dot-probe paradigm, a visual attention paradigm which allows for the assessment of allocation of visual attention to stimuli of varied emotional valence via the measurement of detection latencies for visual probes that follow their presentation. Twenty-two panic disorder patients and 20 healthy control subjects were tested using neutral, social threat, and panic symptom/fear cues. No between-group differences were observed in detection latencies for visual probes that followed neutral, social threat, or panic symptom/fear cues. These results represent a failure to replicate previous reports of selective processing in panic disorder and suggest that panic disorder patients may not selectively process cues related to bodily sensation and panic-related fears. Implications of this finding are discussed.