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Cited by 188Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesFace Recognition and PerceptionChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development

What does the facial dot-probe task tell us about attentional processes in social anxiety? A systematic review

Bantin, Trisha, Stevens, Stephan, Gerlach, Alexander L., Hermann, Christiane·2016·Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
DOI 10.1016/j.jbtep.2015.04.009
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Abstract

Background/objectives Current models of SAD assume that attentional processes play a pivotal role in the etiology and maintenance of social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety is supposedly associated with an attentional bias towards disorder related stimuli such as threatening faces. Using the facial dot probe task in socially anxious individuals has, however, revealed inconsistent findings.Methods The current systematic review aims at disentangling the heterogeneous findings using effect sizes across results by systematically taking into account potential moderating variables (stimulus type, stimulus duration, situational anxiety, disorder severity).Results Results provide some evidence that socially anxious individuals preferentially allocate their attention towards threat faces compared to non-anxious controls. This bias seems to depend on the type of reference stimulus, stimulus duration and clinical level of social anxiety. Avoidance of threat was neither found at early, nor at later stages of attentional processing.Limitations Importantly, the results have to be considered in the light of the only few studies available. Given the heterogeneity of results and some methodological restrictions of the studies included, the picture of attentional bias seems to be much less clear than suggested in the recent social anxiety literature.Conclusions Methodologically, combined measures of dot-probe and eye movement measures might be beneficial to detect overt attentional biases. Importantly, our results show that preferential processing of threat cues might guide early attentional processes in social anxiety, depending however on several contextual and situational factors. Clinically, patients with greater severity of SAD may be more prone to such an attentional bias, thus therapists should take this into account when planning behavioral experiments and exposure therapy.

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  • There are still some uncertainties regarding what should be used as the cut-off for early and late attention.

    “However, there are still some uncertainties regarding what should be used as the cut-off for early and late attention, with some eye tracking and electroencephalogram (EEG) studies reporting attentional shifts as early as 200ms after stimulus onset (Bantin et al., 2016;Belyusar et al., 2013;Hedge and Leonards, 2013).”

    From Meta-analytic review of the effects of a single dose of intranasal oxytocin on threat processing in humans (2018) · cites this paper as Bantin et al., 2016

  • Short stimulus presentation duration is believed to tap into early attentional responses while longer stimulus duration is believed to examine late attention.

    “Short stimulus presentation duration is believed to tap into early attentional responses while longer stimulus duration is believed to examine late attention (Bantin et al., 2016).”

    From Meta-analytic review of the effects of a single dose of intranasal oxytocin on threat processing in humans (2018) · cites this paper as Bantin et al., 2016

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Authors
Bantin, T., Stevens, S., Gerlach, A. L., & Hermann, C.
Affiliations
  • Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (DE)
  • University of Cologne (DE)
Corresponding author
Stevens, Stephan
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2016-03
Volume
50
Pages
40-51
ISSN
0005-7916 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jbtep.2015.04.009
OpenAlex
W824165582
Cited by
188
References
70
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 1
FWCI
1.76
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Kölner Universitäts PublikationsServer (Universität zu Köln) (publishedVersion)
Funders
German Research Foundation (STE-1875/2-1)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
Keywords
social anxiety disorder, attentional bias, attentional avoidance, stimulus duration, state anxiety, disorder severity, eye movement measures, exposure therapy
MeSH terms
Facial Recognition, Attention, Facial Expression, Humans, Phobic Disorders, Social Perception

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