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(A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat

Attentional biases toward or away from emotionally evocative stimuli have been well documented and are known to be clinically relevant, making it important to understand how various factors contribute to them. Some work has suggested that acute stress modulates attentional biases, but this work has...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hunter, Colton L., Shields, Grant S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10405195/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37554554
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2023.100195
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author Hunter, Colton L.
Shields, Grant S.
author_facet Hunter, Colton L.
Shields, Grant S.
author_sort Hunter, Colton L.
collection PubMed
description Attentional biases toward or away from emotionally evocative stimuli have been well documented and are known to be clinically relevant, making it important to understand how various factors contribute to them. Some work has suggested that acute stress modulates attentional biases, but this work has produced inconsistent results. For example, many studies have found that stress enhances attentional bias, others that stress decreases attentional bias, and others still that there is no effect of stress at all. Methodological differences may explain these inconsistencies. For example, discrepancies exist between studies in participant sex (e.g., mixed sample vs. all men) and in the type of attentional bias paradigm. We addressed these gaps by examining the effects of an acute social stressor (vs. control) on attentional bias assessed via facial dot probe, focusing on potential sex differences in these effects (N = 141). We found that, overall, participants were significantly biased towards threat, but biases did not differ by stress condition or sex. These findings help to clarify the existing discrepancy in the literature, as we found that stress exerts little if any effect on attentional bias assessed via a facial dot probe.
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spelling pubmed-104051952023-08-08 (A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat Hunter, Colton L. Shields, Grant S. Compr Psychoneuroendocrinol Article Attentional biases toward or away from emotionally evocative stimuli have been well documented and are known to be clinically relevant, making it important to understand how various factors contribute to them. Some work has suggested that acute stress modulates attentional biases, but this work has produced inconsistent results. For example, many studies have found that stress enhances attentional bias, others that stress decreases attentional bias, and others still that there is no effect of stress at all. Methodological differences may explain these inconsistencies. For example, discrepancies exist between studies in participant sex (e.g., mixed sample vs. all men) and in the type of attentional bias paradigm. We addressed these gaps by examining the effects of an acute social stressor (vs. control) on attentional bias assessed via facial dot probe, focusing on potential sex differences in these effects (N = 141). We found that, overall, participants were significantly biased towards threat, but biases did not differ by stress condition or sex. These findings help to clarify the existing discrepancy in the literature, as we found that stress exerts little if any effect on attentional bias assessed via a facial dot probe. Elsevier 2023-07-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10405195/ /pubmed/37554554 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2023.100195 Text en © 2023 The Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hunter, Colton L.
Shields, Grant S.
(A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat
title (A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat
title_full (A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat
title_fullStr (A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat
title_full_unstemmed (A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat
title_short (A lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat
title_sort (a lack of) effects of acute social stress on attentional bias to threat
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10405195/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37554554
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2023.100195
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