Trait anxiety and perceptual load as determinants of emotion processing in a fear conditioning paradigm.

Journal article

The impact of trait anxiety and perceptual load on selective attention was examined in a fear conditioning paradigm. A fear-conditioned angry face (CS+), an unconditioned angry face (CS-), or an unconditioned face with a neutral or happy expression were used in distractor interference and attentional probe tasks. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants classified centrally presented letters under two conditions of perceptual load. When perceptual load was high, distractors had no effect on selec...

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Authors: Fox, E; Yates, A; Ashwin, C

• Journal: Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 236-249
• Publication date: 2012-04-01
• DOI: 10.1037/a0025321
• EISSN: 1931-1516
• ISSN: 1528-3542
• Language: English
• Keywords: Adolescent; Acoustic Stimulation; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Association Learning; Young Adult; Facial Expression; Inhibition (Psychology); Emotions; Female; Discrimination (Psychology); Fear; Male; Reaction Time; Attention; Anxiety; Individuality; Avoidance Learning; Humans; Conditioning, Classical; Adult; Galvanic Skin Response