Experimental Study Of Attentional Bias To Threat Information In Trait Anxious Individuals

According to Spielberger, anxiety can be classified as trait anxiety and state anxiety. Trait anxiety is considered as a kind of personality trait and the stable individual difference from the perspective of anxiety disposition. State anxiety is considered as a temporary state of anxiety. The relationship between trait anxiety and attentional bias becomes the focus among large numbers of cognitive studies related with anxiety. Some researchers put forward interrelated theories after deep and systematic discussion about it. According to "Attention Bias"theory, there exist over-vigilance to threat stimulus in trait anxiety individuals. Results from studies indicated that state anxiety, stimulus threat value and exposure duration of stimulus have main effect on attentional bias. The characteristic and the mechanism of attentional bias in trait anxiety individuals can be examined by using different paradigms.The whole study can be divided into three parts. On the base of the main effect of state anxiety, stimulus threat value and exposure duration of stimulus on attentional bias, applying the dot probe task, the cue target task and the rapid serial visual presentation task, the cognitive processing characteristic of trait anxiety individuals was explored with the materials of IAPS(high threat pictures, low threat pictures and neutral pictures) from the aspect of spatial processing, disengagement of attention and temporal processing. The Trait Anxiety scale (STAT-T) of Spielberger and Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale were applied in the study. There were 336 participants selected from 4000 persons, in which 168 of high or low trait anxiety group were included respectively.The result indicated that:First, with elevations in state anxiety, the high trait anxiety individuals were vigilant to the high and low threat stimulus at the exposure duration of 500ms, and it was because that the high trait anxiety individuals were difficult to disengage from the high and low threat stimulus. Under the condition of high state anxiety, the high trait anxiety individuals were vigilant to the low threat stimulus at the exposure duration of 1250ms, and low trait anxiety individuals were vigilant to the high threat stimulus at the exposure duration of 500ms.Second, under the condition of low state anxiety, attentional bias to high and low threat stimulus was not found in the spatial distribution of attention resourse in high and low trait anxiety individuals at the two kind of exposure duration (500ms, 1250ms).Third, under the condition of high state anxiety, attentional bias to high and low threat stimulus was found in the temporal distribution of attention resourse in the high trait anxiety individuals, and there only existed over-vigilance to high threat stimulus in the temporal distribution of attention resourse in the low trait anxiety individuals.