Behavioral and ERP measures of attentional bias to threat in the dot-probe task: poor reliability and lack of correlation with anxiety

Kappenman, Emily S.; Farrens, Jaclyn L.; Luck, Steven J.; Hajcak, Greg · 2014 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01368

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Summary

This study addresses critical psychometric limitations of the dot-probe task, widely considered the gold standard for measuring attentional bias to threat in anxiety research. Previous literature has demonstrated that the traditional reaction time (RT) measure in this task exhibits poor internal and test-retest reliability and often fails to detect attentional bias in typical populations, despite evidence that threatening stimuli capture attention in other paradigms. The authors investigated whether event-related potential (ERP) measures, specifically the N2pc component, offer a more reliable index of attentional orienting and whether either the RT or N2pc measures correlate with individual differences in trait anxiety. The researchers conducted an experiment with 96 undergraduate participants who completed a dot-probe task using complex threatening and neutral images from the International Affective Picture System. Participants viewed simultaneous pairs of images followed by a target probe, requiring them to respond to the probe’s orientation while ignoring the images. The study measured behavioral performance (RT and accuracy) and electroencephalographic activity (EEG). The N2pc, an ERP component reflecting covert visual attention, was analyzed by comparing contralateral and ipsilateral waveforms relative to the threatening stimulus location. Trait anxiety and depression were assessed using the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (MASQ) to distinguish between anxiety-specific and general distress symptoms. The results confirmed that the traditional RT measure showed no significant attentional bias toward threatening stimuli and exhibited poor internal reliability, with RT bias scores from odd and even trials being uncorrelated. Consequently, the RT measure did not correlate with any MASQ subscales. In contrast, the N2pc revealed a significant initial shift of attention toward threatening images, demonstrating moderate internal reliability. However, despite this reliability, the N2pc amplitude did not correlate with trait anxiety or depression scores. Furthermore, there was no relationship between the N2pc and the RT-based threat bias measure. The findings indicate that while the N2pc provides a more reliable and sensitive measure of the initial allocation of attention to threat than behavioral RTs, it does not serve as a meaningful index of individual differences in anxiety within this task. The authors attribute the lack of behavioral bias to the rapid disengagement of attention from threat before the probe appears, a process captured by the early N2pc but missed by later RTs. Ultimately, the study concludes that neither current measure adequately links attentional bias to anxiety, highlighting a serious need for new tasks and methods to reliably investigate the relationship between attentional bias to threat and anxiety in both clinical and non-clinical populations.

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