title: The influence of children's self-report trait anxiety and depression on visual search for emotional faces.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study presents two experiments that investigated the relationship between 7- and 10-year-olds' levels of self-report trait anxiety and depression and their visual search for threatening (angry faces) and non-threatening (happy and neutral faces) stimuli.
  
  
  METHODS
  In both experiments a visual search paradigm was used to measure participants' reaction times to detect the presence or absence of angry, happy or neutral schematic faces (Experiment 1) or cartoon drawings (Experiment 2). On target present trials, a target face was displayed alongside three, five or seven distractor items. On target absent trials all items were distractors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both experiments demonstrated that on target absent (but not present) trials, increased levels of anxiety produced significantly faster search times in the angry face condition, but not in the neutral condition. In Experiment 2 there was some trend towards significance between anxiety and searches for happy faces in absent trials. There were no effects of depression on search times in any condition.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results support previous work highlighting a specific link between anxiety and attention to threat in childhood.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research into Psychological Development, Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, UK. jah7@soton.ac.uk
authors.forename: Julie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Hadwin
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Donnelly
authors.forename: Christopher C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: French
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Richards
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Watts
authors.forename: Dave
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Daley
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000786:Anger; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D006113:United Kingdom