Biased Saccadic Responses to Emotional Stimuli in Anxiety: An Antisaccade Study

Chen, Nigel T. M.; Clarke, Patrick J. F.; Watson, Tamara L.; MacLeod, Colin; Guastella, Adam J. · 2014 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086474

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Summary

This study investigates the mechanisms underlying attentional biases in anxiety, specifically examining how trait anxiety influences the processing of emotional stimuli through both stimulus-driven and attentional control systems. While anxiety is consistently linked to a bias toward threat, emerging evidence suggests it is also associated with deficient processing of positive stimuli. The authors utilized an emotional variant of the antisaccade task to distinguish between reflexive attentional capture (prosaccades) and volitional inhibitory control (antisaccades). The research aimed to determine if anxiety-related biases were evident in saccade latency, error rates, and peak velocity, with a particular focus on whether anxiety affects the processing of positive stimuli and the inhibition of threat. Fifty-five participants were categorized into high and low trait anxiety groups based on State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores. They performed an eye-tracking task requiring them to look toward (prosaccade) or away (antisaccade) from peripheral faces expressing happy, neutral, or angry emotions. The study measured saccade latency, error rates, and peak velocity for both correct and erroneous responses. Peak velocity was analyzed as an index of cognitive load and compensatory effort, particularly in erroneous antisaccades where participants failed to inhibit the reflexive response. The results revealed a significant interaction between anxiety group and stimulus valence regarding saccade latency. Low-anxious participants were slower to saccade toward or away from positive stimuli compared to threat or neutral stimuli, indicating a preferential processing of positive information. This bias was absent in high-anxious individuals, who showed no latency differences across valences, suggesting a deficient attentional processing of positive stimuli in anxiety. Regarding inhibitory control, anxiety did not significantly affect the latency or error rates of correct antisaccades away from threat. However, analysis of erroneous antisaccades revealed a trend-level interaction: high-anxious participants exhibited significantly reduced peak velocity when incorrectly saccading toward threat compared to neutral stimuli. This reduction in velocity was not observed in low-anxious participants. The findings suggest that anxiety is characterized by an aberrant processing of positive stimuli, manifesting as a lack of the normative attentional preference seen in low-anxious individuals. Furthermore, the reduced peak velocity in erroneous antisaccades toward threat indicates that high-anxious individuals exert greater compensatory cognitive effort to inhibit threat-related responses after an error has been initiated. This highlights the utility of saccade peak velocity as a measure of compensatory processes in anxiety. The study concludes that while anxious individuals may not show deficits in successfully inhibiting threat (likely due to increased compensatory effort), they demonstrate a distinct impairment in the early processing of positive information and heightened effort in managing threat-related errors.

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• anxiety depression driving