title: Biased interpretation and memory in children with varying levels of spider fear.
abstract: This study investigated multiple cognitive biases in children simultaneously, to investigate whether spider-fearful children display an interpretation bias, a recall bias, and source monitoring errors, and whether these biases are specific for spider-related materials. Furthermore, the independent ability of these biases to predict spider fear was investigated. A total of 121 children filled out the Spider Anxiety and Disgust Screening for Children (SADS-C), and they performed an interpretation task, a memory task, and a Behavioural Assessment Test (BAT). As expected, a specific interpretation bias was found: Spider-fearful children showed more negative interpretations of ambiguous spider-related scenarios, but not of other scenarios. We also found specific source monitoring errors: Spider-fearful children made more fear-related source monitoring errors for the spider-related scenarios, but not for the other scenarios. Only limited support was found for a recall bias. Finally, interpretation bias, recall bias, and source monitoring errors predicted unique variance components of spider fear.
authors.affiliation: a Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen , Nijmegen , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Anke M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: Geraldine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Titulaer
authors.forename: Carlijn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Simons
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Allart
authors.forename: Erwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: de Gier
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Bögels
authors.forename: Eni S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rinck
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013112:Spiders