No Evidence of Reliability Across 36 Variations of the Emotional Dot-Probe Task in 9,600 Participants.

ABSTRACT: The emotional dot-probe task is a widely used measure of attentional bias to threat. Recent work suggests, however, that subtraction-based behavioral measures of emotional dot-probe performance may not be appropriate for measuring such attentional biases due to poor reliability. In the two current studies, we systematically tested thirty-six versions of the emotional dot-probe that varied in stimuli (faces, scenes, snakes/spiders), timings (stimulus onset asynchrony of 100, 500, 900 milliseconds), stimulus orientations (horizontal, vertical), and trial types (e.g., threat congruent and threat incongruent). Across 9,600 participants, none of the 36 versions demonstrated internal reliability greater than zero. Reliability was similarly poor in anxious participants (based on Generalized Anxie

SUBMITTER: Xu I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11949442 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature