Tedesco, A. 1 , Croisile, B. 2 & Reynaud, E. 1
1 Laboratoire EMC - Université Lyon 2 - Lyon - FRANCE
2 Service de Neuropsychologie - Hopital Neurologique Pierre Wertheimer - Bron - FRANCE
Research showed that high trait anxiety (HTA) is associated with an attentional bias toward threat stimuli. This bias could be a vulnerability factor for stress but literature lacks of empirical evidence. Using the emotional Stroop task, MacLeod and Hagan (1992) and Van den Hout et. Al. (1995) found that subjects showing attentional bias for subthreshold threat stimuli, reported more distress under stressful conditions. Because of its ability to study the attentional allocation resources, the dot-probe task could test the same prediction more accurately. Thus, using this task with neutral and threatening faces, the aim of our study was to a) replicate results showing that HTA exhibit an attentional bias toward threatening stimuli b) address the prediction that processing bias toward threat stimuli contribute to vulnerability for stress. HTA and LTA subjects were exposed to pairs of faces presented for 5OO ms or 17 ms and subsequently masked. Subjects returned a week after and were exposed to a stress condition. Anxiety was assessed with two questionnaires (STAI, POMS). Our results show that the dot-probe task permits to replicate the awaited results on bias. This task is a good candidate for predicting the anxiety level of subjects under subsequent stressful conditions.