Attentional bias effects for threat and emotional words were investigated, using both the emotional Stroop and emotional lexical decision paradigms. Twenty-eight controls and twenty-eight survivors of sexual assault participated in this study, which comprised three key comparisons. First, key predictions of the threat and emotionality hypotheses were compared, in particular specific and general threat effects, and positive and negative emotionality effects. Second, two separate group comparisons were conducted, specifically controls versus survivors of sexual assault overall, and a matched subset of controls versus PTSD positive survivors of sexual assault versus PTSD negative survivors of sexual assault. Third, performance on the emotional Stroop task and emotional lexical decision task paradigms were compared directly. Slowed colour naming responses (i.e. interference) were observed for both threat effects and emotionality effects in the emotional Stroop task. For the emotional lexical decision task, slowed lexical decisions (i.e. interference) were observed for threat effects, whereas speeded lexical decisions (i.e. facilitation) were observed for emotionality effects. The findings of the current study indicate that threat and emotionality effects may co-exist in both control and survivor populations. The relationship between the presence or absence of PTSD symptoms and threat and emotionality effects requires further investigation with larger sample sizes. There may be a relationship between the presence of PTSD symptoms and specific threat effects, however the findings of the current study for general threat information were inconclusive. No relationship was evident between the presence of absence of PTSD symptoms and positive or negative emotionality effects. The current findings suggest that the emotional Stroop task may be better suited to quantifying threat effects but not emotionality effects, whereas the emotional lexical decision task appears to be able to quantify both threat and emotionality effects.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216531 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Cox, Michelle, shelleyjcox@hotmail.com |
| Publisher | Swinburne University of Technology. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.swin.edu.au/), Copyright Michelle Cox |
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