Attentional biases in social phobia: Utilizing eye movement data

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Social phobia is characterized by an exaggerated fear of negative evaluation that results in substantial interference and distress (APA, 1994), and is estimated to affect approximately 15 million Americans (Kessler et al., 1994). Further, social phobia is associated with significant personal and societal costs (i.e., interpersonal difficulties, decreased work productivity; Coles & Horng, 2006). Encouragingly, models have been developed outlining factors that are likely to maintain this disorder. For example, Rapee and Heimberg (1997) have proposed that social phobia is associated with preferential attention to threat cues. Given the importance of this model, over the past decade extensive efforts have been devoted to testing whether these attentional biases to threat exist. Unfortunately the empirical evidence is mixed, with some research demonstrating vigilance to threat cues (e.g., Mogg et al., 2004), but other studies finding evidence for avoidance of threat (e.g., Mansell et al., 1999). Fortunately, collection of eye-movement data holds promise for resolving this debate by providing a continuous measurement of the time-course and nature of attentional biases. For example, eye-movement data will reveal where participants attend over time and what facial features they focus on when viewing emotional expressions.