Attentional bias differences between fear and disgust: Implications for the role of disgust in disgust-related anxiety disorders

Research demonstrates a relation between disgust and anxiety-related pathology; however, research has yet to reveal mechanisms by which disgust may contribute to anxiety. The current experiment examined attentional bias characteristics as one route by which disgust influences anxiety. Eighty undergr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCognition and emotion Vol. 23; no. 4; pp. 675 - 687
Main Authors Cisler, Josh M., Olatunji, Bunmi O., Lohr, Jeffrey M., Williams, Nathan L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hove Taylor & Francis Group 01.06.2009
Psychology Press
Subjects
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders. Neuroses
Attentional bias
Biological and medical sciences
Disengagement
Disgust
Fear
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
Prone
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Human
Affect affectivity
Fear
Disgust
Attention
Anxiety disorder
Cognition
Emotion emotionality
Cognitive bias
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Summary:Research demonstrates a relation between disgust and anxiety-related pathology; however, research has yet to reveal mechanisms by which disgust may contribute to anxiety. The current experiment examined attentional bias characteristics as one route by which disgust influences anxiety. Eighty undergraduate participants completed a rapid serial visual presentation attention task using fear, disgust, or neutral target stimuli. Task-relevance of the target's presentation was also manipulated. Results revealed that task-relevant disgust targets impaired attention among all participants, but task-irrelevant disgust targets impaired attention only in high disgust prone individuals. Difficulty in disengagement characterised both disgust and fear attentional biases, but the difficulty in disengagement was greater for disgust compared to fear attentional biases. High disgust prone individuals displayed exaggerated difficulty in disengaging attention from disgust targets compared to low disgust prone individuals. The results suggest that disgust attentional biases differ from fear attentional biases. The characteristics of disgust attentional biases are discussed as possible mechanisms by which disgust functions in certain anxiety disorders.
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ISSN:0269-9931
1464-0600
DOI:10.1080/02699930802051599