2. state vs trait Flashcards
state anxiety
increased threat value assigned to a situation
judgement of specific stimulus or context as threatening
bottom up - subcortical/sensory areas + PFC (elaborate in cortex)
high state not exhibit high trait
trait anxiety
consistent direction of attention towards a threat
tendency - constant attention related to attentional strategies
generalised anxiety and/or situations of a specific type
top down - PFC to subcortical areas
‘apprehension’ can fluctuate in magnitude over an extended period in the absence of cues
assoc w/hypervigilance - heightened arousal, neg affect and ANS activation in environ monitoring
most trait exhibit high state
emotional stroop
name font colour
ignore word meaning - vary valence
RT as consequence of word valuation interference
STATE - affective valence grabs attention
response potentiated in high trait anxiety and reduced in low
emotional dot probe task
macloed and mathews
judge if 1 or 2 dots presented in between presentation of words of high or low valence - told will be a memory test
sofa stab
**
high valence grabs attention - incogruent dots = slower RT
high anxious increase RT when dots congruent with valent word and reduced/absent in low anxiety (trait)
emotional visual distractor task
ohman
orienting responses: 4-9 squares w/threat or neutral images - vary atentional resources required to perform the task respond to odd image out - threat in presence of neutral - fast - neutral in presence of threat - slow
dot probe - why reaction times faster when dot congruent with threat than when congruent with neutral?
high anxious: attention grabbed by word valence? -
orient more to threat related processes (bottom up)
OR less able to orient away from the word valent stimulus? (top down) - once attention with threat stimuli - find more difficult to remove attention to something else
two aspects of attentional biases that may be different in people with high anxiety
importance of distinguishing between top down and bottom up attentional biases in high anxiety persons
(treatment)
either diminish hypersensitivity to threat stimuli - made less hyperthreatening
OR
lack of top down control to be able to reallocate attention - teach/train to shift attention to non threatening items (more cog-attentional intervention)
what do stoop, visual distractor tasks and dot probe relate to in anxiety
work on the assumption that anxiety amplifies bottom up
- signal a preattentive threat mechanism (hypervigilant in trait anxiety)
before conscious allocation of attention - potentially subcortical system - detects and biases attention in favour of threat
high valent stimuli as distractors slows RT down
posner attentional modules
attention not unitary - structurally and functionally independent systems work co-operatively
alerting
orienting
executive control
posner: alerting
maintain appropriate sensitivity to percieve and process stimuli
right frontal and parietal cortices
posner: orienting
selection of info among sensory stimuli
superior parietal, FEF and temporoparietal junction
posner: exec control
conflict resolution and voluntary action
midline frontal, ACG and LPFC
bishop duncan and lawrence
individual differences in anxiety and attention HYP
the extent threat detection is modulated by attention is dependent on anxiety levels
high anxiety: heightened preattentive orientation to threat stimuli and heightened likelihood that threat will capture attention
low anxiety: mediated specifically by threat cues presence
bishop duncan and lawrence
METHOD
fMRI - houses (PHG) and Faces (FFA)
match on whether or not identical (2 horizonal, 2 vertical - cross)
vary which to attend to - alter attention to threat stimuli
- high vs low trait anxiety
does amyg detect?
bishop duncan and lawrence
FINDINGS
low: reduced amyg response to unattended vs attended fear face
- support pessoa - attentional modulation
high: heightened response to BOTH attended and unattended threat (support vuillemeir)
bishop duncan and lawrence
possible explanations for results
** amyg not respond in equal mag to threat
- amyg show early threat processing
- hyposensitive of thalamo-amyg route in high anxiety
- heightens response to mild threat - amyg requires attention or else does not process threat valence
- low anxious heighten ability to maintin focus and therefore heighten modulation of amyg to threat - anxiety ma have independent role of both top down and bottom up process in attentional allocation
sommerville, whalen and kelley
sustained vigilance
sustained vigilance of ambiguous/distant threat represented by tonic engagement of BNST
