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Attention to threat, attentional control and early signs of anxiety in preschool children.

学龄前儿童对威胁的关注、注意力控制和焦虑的早期迹象。

基本信息

批准号：
ES/L010119/1
负责人：
Helen Frances Dodd
金额：
$ 31.12万
依托单位：
University of Reading
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2015
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2015 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FL010119%2F1
关键词：
Attention threat attentional control early

项目摘要

It is impossible for us to process all that goes on in the world around us. Instead we pay attention to specific things like the clouds in the sky or the sound of a dog barking. Sometimes we purposefully control what we pay attention to and other times things seem to 'grab' our attention. By acting as a filter, attention plays a fundamental role in shaping our experience of the world. Even if two individuals are exposed to exactly the same environment, their subjective experience can vary considerably, depending on which aspects of the environment they pay attention to. Psychological theory suggests that individuals who have a tendency to pay attention to things that are threatening are more likely to experience anxiety and might be more vulnerable to emotional problems during times of stress. There is already some research supporting this idea but it is all based on work with adults or older children. It is very common for young children to feel fearful or anxious from time to time. However, some children feel so anxious that they cannot do some of the things they would like to do such as approaching a group of children to make friends or staying away from home overnight. Even young children can show early signs of anxiety. Most of these children will go on to become confident and happy, but some go on to have problems with anxiety in later childhood and more long-term social and emotional problems. One of the aims of this research is to see whether attention towards threat, or children's ability to control their attention, helps predict longer-term problems with anxiety. The research will make use of exciting new technologies, adapted especially for children, which allow us to capture what children are looking at and record their brain activity whilst they look at pictures. As well as these simple computer-based games, the research also includes some tasks that parents and children complete together. These are to help us to understand whether parents are able to affect what their child pays attention to. This could be important for helping children who are at risk of developing anxiety problems. This research is important for two main reasons: first, because it may help us to identify children who are likely to experience emotional problems; secondly, it may help us to design new programmes that we can use to decrease the chances of these children having ongoing problems with anxiety. This would not only improve the quality of life of the children in question and reduce the emotional burden on their parents, but it would decrease the cost of long-term mental health problems.

我们不可能处理我们周围世界发生的所有事情。相反，我们会关注一些具体的事情，比如天空中的云或狗叫的声音。有时我们会刻意控制我们的注意力，而有时事情似乎会“抓住”我们的注意力。通过充当过滤器，注意力在塑造我们对世界的体验方面起着重要作用。即使两个人暴露在完全相同的环境中，他们的主观体验也会有很大差异，这取决于他们关注环境的哪个方面。心理学理论表明，那些倾向于关注威胁事物的人更容易感到焦虑，在压力下更容易受到情绪问题的影响。已经有一些研究支持这一观点，但这些研究都是基于对成年人或年龄较大的儿童的研究。幼儿时常感到害怕或焦虑是很常见的。然而，有些孩子感到如此焦虑，以至于他们不能做一些他们想做的事情，比如接近一群孩子交朋友或离家过夜。即使是小孩子也会表现出焦虑的早期迹象。这些孩子中的大多数会变得自信和快乐，但有些会在童年后期出现焦虑问题，以及更长期的社会和情感问题。这项研究的目的之一是观察对威胁的注意力，或者儿童控制注意力的能力，是否有助于预测长期的焦虑问题。这项研究将利用令人兴奋的新技术，特别是针对儿童的技术，使我们能够捕捉孩子们正在看的东西，并记录他们在看图片时的大脑活动。除了这些简单的电脑游戏，这项研究还包括一些父母和孩子一起完成的任务。这些都是为了帮助我们了解父母是否能够影响孩子的注意力。这对于帮助那些有焦虑风险的孩子是很重要的。这项研究很重要，主要有两个原因：首先，因为它可以帮助我们识别可能出现情绪问题的儿童；其次，它可以帮助我们设计新的方案，我们可以用它来减少这些孩子有持续的焦虑问题的机会。这不仅会提高这些孩子的生活质量，减轻他们父母的情感负担，而且还会降低长期心理健康问题的成本。