Do not look away! Spontaneous frontal EEG theta/beta ratio as a marker for cognitive control over attention to mild and high threat

Angelidis, Angelos; Hagenaars, Muriel; van Son, Dana; van der Does, Willem; Putman, Peter · 2018 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.03.002

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Summary

This study investigates the role of spontaneous frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) theta/beta ratio (TBR) as a marker for cognitive control over attentional bias toward threatening stimuli. While low TBR is established as an indicator of enhanced executive control, its specific influence on attention to stimuli of varying threat intensities remained unclear. The research aimed to determine how frontal TBR and trait anxiety interact to regulate attentional responses to mildly and highly threatening information across different processing stages. The researchers recruited 74 healthy volunteers, with 65 participants included in the final analysis after excluding outliers and those with exclusion criteria. Participants underwent resting-state EEG recording to calculate frontal TBR, completed self-report measures for trait anxiety (Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) and attentional control (Attentional Control Scale), and performed a dot-probe task. The dot-probe task utilized pairs of neutral, mildly threatening (MT), and highly threatening (HT) images from the International Affective Picture System. Attentional bias was assessed at two cue-target delays (200 ms and 500 ms) to capture early and later stages of attentional processing. The results demonstrated a significant interaction between threat level and TBR. Participants with higher TBR, indicative of lower cognitive control, exhibited an attentional bias toward mildly threatening stimuli while avoiding highly threatening ones. Conversely, participants with low TBR and low trait anxiety—the most resilient group—showed attention toward highly threatening stimuli, suggesting effective engagement with high-threat information rather than avoidance. There were no significant effects of the cue-target delay, indicating that these patterns were consistent across early and later processing stages. Additionally, the study replicated previous findings showing a negative association between TBR and self-reported attentional control. These findings confirm that executive control, as indexed by frontal TBR, is crucial for regulating attentional bias to threat. The results support the cognitive-motivational analysis framework, suggesting that individuals with high cognitive control can effectively process high-threat information, whereas those with lower control tend to avoid high-threat stimuli and attend to mild threats. This study provides evidence that TBR is a reliable electrophysiological marker for cognitive-affective regulation, highlighting the importance of considering both objective measures of control and stimulus threat levels in understanding anxiety-related attentional biases.

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• stress arousal performance