title: Performance-based interpretation bias in clinically anxious youths: relationships with attention, anxiety, and negative cognition.
abstract: This preliminary investigation sought to examine basic interpretive biases, as assessed via performance-based means, in the context of anxious symptomatology, attention, and negative cognition in children and adolescents. At a single assessment, 26 youths diagnosed with primary separation anxiety, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder completed performance-based assessments of interpretation and attention. Youths and parents also completed diagnostic interviews and youths completed a measure of negative self-statements. Components of interpretation (threat-valence judgments and speed of responding) were examined, and interpretation was explored as a correlate of youth anxiety, attention bias, and negative self-statements. Results found percentage of negative interpretations endorsed as the strongest predictor of anxiety symptoms; this index was also correlated with attention bias. Slower rejection of benign interpretations was also associated with youth-reported negative self-statements.This initial investigation provides support for a relationship between interpretation bias and anxiety and preliminary evidence for a relationship between attention and interpretation biases. Continued research dismantling the stages of basic cognition within the chain of information processing may provide a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying anxiety disorders in youths and lead to continued development and refinement of cognitive interventions.
authors.affiliation: SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. Electronic address: mrozenman@mednet.ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rozenman
authors.affiliation: SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology.
authors.forename: Nader
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Amir
authors.affiliation: SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology.
authors.forename: V Robin
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Weersing
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male
keywords: attention; cognitive bias; information processing; interpretation; youth anxiety