Dot probe performance in two specific phobias.
The present study applied MacLeod, Mathews & Tata's (1986) dot probe attentional deployment methodology to individuals with specific phobias.



Attentional deployment towards spider-related, blood-related, positive, negative, and neutral words was examined.



Individuals with either spider phobia (N = 13) or blood/injury phobia (N = 14) and non-anxious controls (N = 14) completed the dot probe attentional deployment task.



Individuals with specific phobias did not demonstrate an attentional bias towards phobia-related stimuli relevant to their particular fears.



Semantic-based information processing paradigms may not be sufficiently potent to demonstrate biased performance towards threatening stimuli in individuals with mild specific phobias who are otherwise healthy.
Wenzel
A
A
Department of Psychology, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, USA.
Holt
C S
CS
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D001769:Blood; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012660:Semantics; D013112:Spiders