Attentional Bias in High Math-anxious Individuals: Evidence from an Emotional Stroop Task

Overview

Journal Front Psychol

Date 2015 Nov 6

PMID 26539137

Citations 8

Authors

Macarena Suarez-Pellicioni

Maria Isabel Nunez-Pena

Angels Colome

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Attentional bias toward threatening or emotional information is considered a cognitive marker of anxiety, and it has been described in various clinical and subclinical populations. This study used an emotional Stroop task to investigate whether math anxiety is characterized by an attentional bias toward math-related words. Two previous studies failed to observe such an effect in math-anxious individuals, although the authors acknowledged certain methodological limitations that the present study seeks to avoid. Twenty high math-anxious (HMA) and 20 low math-anxious (LMA) individuals were presented with an emotional Stroop task including math-related and neutral words. Participants in the two groups did not differ in trait anxiety or depression. We found that the HMA group showed slower response times to math-related words than to neutral words, as well as a greater attentional bias (math-related - neutral difference score) than the LMA one, which constitutes the first demonstration of an attentional bias toward math-related words in HMA individuals.

Citing Articles

Proactive control of attention in math-anxious individuals.

Colome A, Nunez-Pena M, Gonzalez-Gomez B Psychol Res. 2022; 87(5):1484-1490.

PMID: 36269445 PMC: 10226904. DOI: 10.1007/s00426-022-01750-3.

Math anxiety and deficient executive control: does reappraisal modulate this link?.

Daches Cohen L, Rubinsten O Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2022; 1513(1):108-120.

PMID: 35389529 PMC: 9544869. DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14772.

Math Anxiety Is Related to Math Difficulties and Composed of Emotion Regulation and Anxiety Predisposition: A Network Analysis Study.

Daches Cohen L, Korem N, Rubinsten O Brain Sci. 2021; 11(12).

PMID: 34942911 PMC: 8699086. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11121609.

Processing of Ordinal Information in Math-Anxious Individuals.

Colome A, Nunez-Pena M Front Psychol. 2021; 12:566614.

PMID: 33967874 PMC: 8096927. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.566614.

Bartolo A, Santos I, Guimaraes R, Reis S, Monteiro S Cogn Process. 2021; 22(3):569-578.

PMID: 33797684 DOI: 10.1007/s10339-021-01026-5.

References

Franken I, Gootjes L, Van Strien J . Automatic processing of emotional words during an emotional Stroop task. Neuroreport. 2009; 20(8):776-81. DOI: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e32832b02fe. View

Rubinsten O, Eidlin H, Wohl H, Akibli O . Attentional bias in math anxiety. Front Psychol. 2015; 6:1539. PMC: 4607867. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01539. View

Dresler T, Hindi Attar C, Spitzer C, Lowe B, Deckert J, Buchel C . Neural correlates of the emotional Stroop task in panic disorder patients: an event-related fMRI study. J Psychiatr Res. 2012; 46(12):1627-34. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2012.09.004. View

Hopko D, Ashcraft M, Gute J, Ruggiero K, Lewis C . Mathematics anxiety and working memory: support for the existence of a deficient inhibition mechanism. J Anxiety Disord. 1998; 12(4):343-55. DOI: 10.1016/s0887-6185(98)00019-x. View

van den Hout M, Tenney N, Huygens K, Merckelbach H, Kindt M . Responding to subliminal threat cues is related to trait anxiety and emotional vulnerability: a successful replication of Macleod and Hagan (1992). Behav Res Ther. 1995; 33(4):451-4. DOI: 10.1016/0005-7967(94)00062-o. View

Erblich J, Montgomery G, Valdimarsdottir H, Cloitre M, Bovbjerg D . Biased cognitive processing of cancer-related information among women with family histories of breast cancer: evidence from a cancer stroop task. Health Psychol. 2003; 22(3):235-44. DOI: 10.1037/0278-6133.22.3.235. View

Lim S, Kim J . Cognitive processing of emotional information in depression, panic, and somatoform disorder. J Abnorm Psychol. 2005; 114(1):50-61. DOI: 10.1037/0021-843X.114.1.50. View

Andersson G, Westoo J, Johansson L, Carlbring P . Cognitive bias via the Internet: a comparison of Web-based and standard emotional Stroop tasks in social phobia. Cogn Behav Ther. 2006; 35(1):55-62. DOI: 10.1080/16506070500372469. View

Hennessey N, Dourado E, Beilby J . Anxiety and speaking in people who stutter: an investigation using the emotional Stroop task. J Fluency Disord. 2014; 40:44-57. DOI: 10.1016/j.jfludis.2013.11.001. View

10.

Amir N, Beard C, Taylor C, Klumpp H, Elias J, Burns M . Attention training in individuals with generalized social phobia: A randomized controlled trial. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2009; 77(5):961-973. PMC: 2796508. DOI: 10.1037/a0016685. View

11.

Osinsky R, Gebhardt H, Alexander N, Hennig J . Trait anxiety and the dynamics of attentional control. Biol Psychol. 2011; 89(1):252-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.10.016. View

12.

Mogg K, Bradley B . A cognitive-motivational analysis of anxiety. Behav Res Ther. 1998; 36(9):809-48. DOI: 10.1016/s0005-7967(98)00063-1. View

13.

Wikstrom J, Lundh L, Westerlund J, Hogman L . Preattentive bias for snake words in snake phobia?. Behav Res Ther. 2004; 42(8):949-70. DOI: 10.1016/j.brat.2003.07.002. View

14.

McKenna F, Sharma D . Reversing the emotional Stroop effect reveals that it is not what it seems: the role of fast and slow components. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2004; 30(2):382-92. DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.30.2.382. View

15.

Ashley V, Honzel N, Larsen J, Justus T, Swick D . Attentional bias for trauma-related words: exaggerated emotional Stroop effect in Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans with PTSD. BMC Psychiatry. 2013; 13:86. PMC: 3608167. DOI: 10.1186/1471-244X-13-86. View

16.

Phaf R, Kan K . The automaticity of emotional Stroop: a meta-analysis. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2006; 38(2):184-99. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2006.10.008. View

17.

Macleod C, Rutherford E, Campbell L, Ebsworthy G, Holker L . Selective attention and emotional vulnerability: assessing the causal basis of their association through the experimental manipulation of attentional bias. J Abnorm Psychol. 2002; 111(1):107-23. View

18.

Eysenck M, Derakshan N, Santos R, Calvo M . Anxiety and cognitive performance: attentional control theory. Emotion. 2007; 7(2):336-53. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336. View

19.

Suarez-Pellicioni M, Nunez-Pena M, Colome A . Reactive recruitment of attentional control in math anxiety: an ERP study of numeric conflict monitoring and adaptation. PLoS One. 2014; 9(6):e99579. PMC: 4053379. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099579. View

20.

Guasch M, Boada R, Ferre P, Sanchez-Casas R . NIM: A Web-based Swiss army knife to select stimuli for psycholinguistic studies. Behav Res Methods. 2012; 45(3):765-71. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-012-0296-8. View