Foveal vs. Parafoveal Processing in Anxiety: Broadened Spatial Attention for Threat Words

• Autores: Aida Gutiérrez García, Manuel Gutiérrez Calvo
• Localización: Psicológica: Revista de metodología y psicología experimental, ISSN-e 1576-8597, ISSN 0211-2159, Vol. 32, Nº 2, 2011, págs. 301-321
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • We investigated the processing of threat-related, positive, and neutral words in parafoveal and in foveal vision as a function of individual differences in trait anxiety. In a lexical-decision task, word primes were presented for 150 ms either parafoveally (2.2° away from fixation; Experiment 1) or foveally (at fixation; Experiment 3) followed by a probe word; or a foveal probe word was presented alone (with no prime; Experiment 2). Results showed that parafoveal prime threat words facilitated responses to probe threat words for high-anxiety individuals, in comparison with neutral and positive words, and relative to low-anxiety individuals. In contrast, when the words were presented foveally, there were no differences in resting activation level (i.e., accessibility to single word meanings) or firing thresholds (i.e., foveal priming) as a function of emotional content and anxiety. This reveals a covert attention bias towards threat stimuli in anxiety.

• Referencias bibliográficas
  • Allen, P.A., Smith, A.F., Lien, M.C., Grabbe, J., & Murphy, M.D. (2005). Evidence for an activation locus of the word-frequency effect...
  • Balota, D.A., Cortese, M.J., Sergent-Marshall, S.D., Spieler, D.H., Yap, M.J. (2004). Visual word recognition of single-syllable words. Journal...
  • Bar-Haim, Y., Lamy, D., Pergamin, L., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J., & van IJzendoorn, M.H. (2007). Threat-related attentional bias in anxious...
  • Battista, J., & Kalloniatis, M. (2002). Left-right word recognition asymmetries in central and peripheral vision. Vision Research, 42,...
  • Bradley, B.P., Mogg, K., & Williams, R. (1994). Implicit and explicit memory for emotional information in non-clinical subjects. Behaviour...
  • Calvo, M.G., & Castillo, M.D. (2009). Semantic word priming in the absence of eye fixations: Relative contribution of overt and covert...
  • Calvo, M.G., Castillo, M.D., & Fuentes, L.J. (2006). Processing of "unattended" threatrelated information: Role of emotional content...
  • Calvo, M.G., & Eysenck, M.W. (2008). Affective significance enhances covert attention: Roles of anxiety and word familiarity. The Quarterly...
  • Calvo, M.G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2009). Word identification by covert attention in the right visual field: Gaze-contingent foveal masking....
  • Clore, G.L., & Huntsinger, J.R. (2007). How emotions inform judgment and regulate thought. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 393-399.
  • Davis, C. J., & Perea, M. (2005). BuscaPalabras: A program for deriving orthographic and phonological neighborhood statistics and other...
  • Easterbrook, J.A. (1959). The effect of emotion on cue utilisation and the organization of behavior. Psychological Review, 66, 183-201.
  • Eysenck, M.W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion,...
  • Findlay, J.M., & Gilchrist, I. (2003). Active vision: The psychology of looking and seeing. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  • Fox, E. (1993). Attentional bias in anxiety: Selective or not? Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 487-493.
  • Fox, E. (1994). Attentional bias in anxiety: A defective inhibition hypothesis. Cognition and Emotion, 8, 165-195.
  • Fox, E., & Georgiou, G. A. (2005). The nature of attentional bias in human anxiety. In R. W. Engle, G. Sedek, U. von Hecker, & D....
  • Fox, E., Russo, R., Bowles, R., & Dutton, K. (2001). Do threatening stimuli draw or hold visual attention in subclinical anxiety? Journal...
  • Fredrickson, B., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertories. Cognition and...
  • Gasper, K., & Clore, G.L. (2002). Attending to the big picture: Mood and global vs. local processing of visual information. Psychological...
  • Hyona, J., & Koivisto, M. (2006). The role of eye movements in lateralised word recognition. Laterality, 11, 155-169.
  • Kanne, S. M. (2002). The role of semantic, orthographic, and phonological prime information in unilateral visual neglect. Cognitive Neuropsychology,...
  • Keogh, E., & French, C.C. (1999). The effect of trait anxiety and mood manipulation on the breadth of attention. European Journal of Personality,...
  • Lachter, J., Forster, K.I., & Ruthruff, E. (2004). Forty-five years after Broadbent (1958): Still no identification without attention....
  • Lindell, A. K. (2006). In your right mind: Right hemisphere contributions to human language processing and production. Neuropsychology Review,...
  • Lindell, A. K., Arend, I., Ward, R., Norton, J., & Wathan, J. (2007). Hemispheric asymmetries in feature integration during visual word...
  • MacLeod, C., & Mathews, A. (1991). Biased cognitive operations in anxiety: Accessibility of information or assignment of processing priorities?...
  • Mathews, A., & Mackintosh, B. (1998). A cognitive model of selective processing in anxiety. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 22, 539-560.
  • Mayer, B., & Merkelbach, H. (1999). Unconscious processes, subliminal stimulation, and anxiety. Clinical Psychology Review, 19, 571-590.
  • Mogg, K., & Bradley, B. (1998). A cognitive-motivational analysis of anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 809-848.
  • Pacheco-Unguetti, A.P., Acosta, A., Callejas, A., & Lupianez, J. (2010). Attention and anxiety: Different attentional functioning under...
  • Pacheco-Unguetti. A.P, Lupianez, J., & Acosta, A. (2009). Atencion y ansiedad: Relaciones de la alerta y el control cognitivo de la ansiedad...
  • Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 372-422.
  • Robinson, M. D. (1998). Running from William James' bear: A review of preattentive mechanisms and their contribution to emotional experience....
  • Rusting, C.L. (1998). Personality, mood, and cognitive processing of emotional information: Three conceptual frameworks. Psychological Bulletin,...
  • Shapiro, K.L., & Lim, A. (1989). The impact of anxiety on visual attention to central and peripheral events. Behaviour Research and Therapy,...
  • Spielberger, C.D., Gorsuch, R.L., & Lushene, R.E. (1982). Cuestionario de Ansiedad Estado-Rasgo [State Trait Anxiety Inventory]. Madrid:...
  • Staal, M.A. (2004). Stress, cognition, and human performance: A literature review and conceptual framework. Hanover, MD: NASA.
  • Wandell, B.A. (1995). Foundations of vision. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.
  • Wu, S.-C., & Remington, R. (2003). Characteristics of covert and overt visual orienting: Evidence from attentional and oculomotor capture....