Selective processing of negative emotional information in children and adolescents with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
OBJECTIVE
Research investigating attentional bias for emotional information using the modified Stroop task in younger anxious populations has produced equivocal results. The present data investigated the replicability in younger participants of the prototypical adult finding of Mathews and MacLeod (1985) with patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).


METHODS
A sample of 19 child and adolescent patients with GAD and 19 controls completed the modified Stroop paradigm with threat, depression-related, positive and neutral words.


RESULTS
The data revealed a selective Stroop interference effect for negative emotional information in the GAD patients, relative to the performance of the controls.


CONCLUSIONS
The results provide evidence of a modified Stroop effect for negative emotional material in children and adolescents with GAD, suggesting that modified Stroop processing in younger generally anxious populations broadly mirrors the profile of results in adults.
Taghavi
Mohammad R
MR
Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
Dalgleish
Tim
T
Moradi
Ali R
AR
Neshat-Doost
Hamid T
HT
Yule
William
W
D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011897:Random Allocation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014825:Vocabulary; D014888:Wechsler Scales