Eye tracking and visual attention to threating stimuli in veterans of the Iraq war
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Theoretical and clinical characterizations of attention in PTSD acknowledge the possibility for both hypervigilance and avoidance of trauma-relevant stimuli. This study used eye tracking technology to investigate visual orientation and attention to traumatic and neutral stimuli in nineteen veterans of the Iraq war. Veterans saw slides in which half the screen had a negatively valenced image and half had a neutral image. Negatively valenced stimuli were further divided into stimuli that varied in trauma relevance (either Iraq war or civilian motor vehicle accidents). Veterans reporting relatively higher levels of PSTD symptoms had larger pupils to all negatively valenced pictures and spent more time looking at them than did veterans lower in PTSD symptoms. Veterans higher in PTSD symptoms also showed a trend towards looking first at Iraq images. The findings suggest that post-traumatic pathology is associated with vigilance rather than avoidance when visually processing negatively valenced and trauma-relevant stimuli.
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The present finding of increased initial maintenance of gaze on threat in PTSD continued over 10 s trials.
“Also, the present finding of increased initial maintenance of gaze on threat in PTSD was found to continue over 10 s trials (Kimble et al., 2010).”
From Eye tracking of attention in the affective disorders: a meta-analytic review and synthesis (2012) · cites this paper as Kimble et al., 2010
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Eye tracking of attention in the affective disorders: a meta-analytic review and synthesis
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“However, empirical findings differ on whether such biases relate to emotional or threatening stimuli overall (Kimble et al. 2010; Vythilingam et al. 2007), trauma-specific stimuli (Fleurkens et al. 2011; Khanna et al. 2015), or a combination of both (Zinchenko et al. 2017).”
BackgroundZoellner, L. A., Sheikh, I. S., Walker, R. W., Rosencrans, P., Garcia, N. M., Marks, E. H., Ojalehto, H. J., & Bedard-Gilligan, M. A. (2019) · Handbook of Sexual Assault and Sexual Assault Prevention · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-23645-8_20 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kimble, M. O., Fleming, K., Bandy, C., Kim, J., & Zambetti, A.
- Affiliations
- Middlebury College (US)
- Norwich University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kimble, Matthew O.
- Venue
- Journal of Anxiety Disorders
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-04
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 293-299
- ISSN
- 0887-6185 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2838961
- OpenAlex
- W2158433162
- Cited by
- 156
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 9.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Anxiety Disorders (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R15MH081276)
- National Center for Research Resources (P20RR016462, P20-RR16462)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Traumatic Brain Injury Research
- Keywords
- post-traumatic stress disorder, Iraq War veterans, eye tracking, visual attention, hypervigilance, avoidance, pupil dilation, visual orienting, negative valence
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anxiety Disorders, Arousal, Attention, Combat Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Fixation, Ocular, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Orientation, Personality Inventory, Psychometrics, Reflex, Pupillary, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Veterans, Visual Perception, Panic Disorder, Iraq War, 2003-2011, Young Adult
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