title: No Significant Evidence of Cognitive Biases for Emotional Stimuli in Children At-Risk of Developing Anxiety Disorders.
abstract: This paper explores whether the increased vulnerability of children of anxious parents to develop anxiety disorders may be partially explained by these children having increased cognitive biases towards threat compared with children of non-anxious parents. Parents completed questionnaires about their child's anxiety symptoms. Children aged 5-9 (n = 85) participated in two cognitive bias tasks: 1) an emotion recognition task, and 2) an ambiguous situations questionnaire. For the emotion recognition task, there were no significant differences between at-risk children and children of non-anxious parents in their cognitive bias scores for reaction times or for accuracy in identifying angry or happy facial expressions. In addition, there were no significant differences between at-risk children and children of non-anxious parents in the number of threat interpretations made for the ambiguous situations questionnaire. It is possible that these cognitive biases only become present subsequent to the development of an anxiety disorder, or only in older at-risk children.
authors.affiliation: Trafford Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RY, UK. D.Ewing@bsms.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Donna L
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8727-4914
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Ewing
authors.affiliation: Trafford Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RY, UK.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dash
authors.affiliation: Trafford Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RY, UK.
authors.forename: Ellen J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: Trafford Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RY, UK.
authors.forename: Cassie M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Hazell
authors.affiliation: Trafford Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RY, UK.
authors.forename: Zoe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.affiliation: Trafford Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RY, UK.
authors.forename: Kathryn J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Lester
authors.affiliation: Trafford Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RY, UK.
authors.forename: Sam
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cartwright-Hatton
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D000066498:Emotional Adjustment; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012307:Risk Factors
keywords: Ambiguous situations; Anxiety; At-risk children; Cognitive bias; Emotion recognition