Emotional stroop performance in older adults: effects of habitual worry.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

In clinically anxious individuals, selective attention to negative cues in the environment may perpetuate a vicious cycle of emotional dysfunction. However, very little is known regarding the role of negative attentional bias in anxious older adults. There is evidence that in older adults without clinical anxiety, the opposite bias (toward positive, and away from negative, emotional material) is present. We explored how these age-related changes in emotional processing interact with anxiety.

Method

Sixty older adults (age 60+) completed the emotional Stroop (eStroop) task, a widely used measure of attentional bias, which requires rapid identification of the color in which neutral and emotional words are printed. Participants were stratified into high-, mid-, and lo

SUBMITTER: Price RB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3246555 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature