Attentional Control Theory in Childhood: Enhanced Attentional Capture by Non-Emotional and Emotional Distractors in Anxiety and Depression.

ABSTRACT: Attentional control theory (ACT) proposes that anxiety is associated with executive functioning deficits. The theory has been widely investigated in adults. The current study tested whether symptoms of childhood anxiety and depression were associated with experimentally measured attentional control in the context of non-emotional and emotional stimuli. Sixty-one children (mean age = 9.23 years, range = 8.39-10.41) reported their trait anxiety and depression symptoms and completed three visual search tasks. The tasks used a variant of an irrelevant singleton paradigm and measured attentional capture by task-irrelevant non-emotional (color) and emotional (facial expressions) distractors. Significant attentional capture by both non-emotional and emotional distractors was observed, and was sig

SUBMITTER: Waszczuk MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4658135 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature