Related Experiment Videos
Attentional bias in posttraumatic stress disorder
1School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, NSW, Australia.
Journal of Traumatic Stress
|December 10, 1997
Summary
Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show faster responses to mild threat words, indicating their attention is captured by such stimuli. This suggests a heightened sensitivity to threat cues in PTSD.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Trauma Studies
Background:
- Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with altered threat processing.
- Attentional bias towards threat is a core feature of PTSD, but its specific nature requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate preferential encoding of threat material in individuals with PTSD.
- To examine attentional bias using a modified dot-probe paradigm.
Main Methods:
- A modified dot-probe paradigm was employed.
- Participants included motor vehicle accident survivors with PTSD (n=15), subclinical PTSD (n=15), and low anxiety (n=15).
- Response latencies to name neutral target words adjacent to or distant from threat, positive, and neutral words were measured.
Main Results:
- Subjects with PTSD exhibited faster target word naming when targets were presented near mild threat words.
- This finding suggests that attention in PTSD is preferentially drawn to mild threat stimuli.
Conclusions:
- The results support the notion that individuals with PTSD exhibit an attentional bias towards mild threat cues.
- These findings can be integrated into network models of PTSD to better understand its underlying mechanisms.