Look out captain, I hear an ambiguous alien! A study of interpretation bias and anxiety in young children.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_2BAE9C6B19D1
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Look out captain, I hear an ambiguous alien! A study of interpretation bias and anxiety in young children.
Journal
Behaviour research and therapy
Author(s)
Stuijfzand S., Chakrabarti B., Reynolds S., Dodd H.F.
ISSN
1873-622X (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0005-7967
Publication state
Published
Issued date
10/2019
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
121
Pages
103450
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Publication Status: ppublish
Abstract
There is convincing evidence that anxious children and adolescents are biased to interpret ambiguity in a negative way (Stuijfzand, Creswell, Field, Pearcey, & Dodd, 2017). However, little research examines interpretation bias in children under eight years. This is due to existing measures of interpretation bias being inappropriate for young children. Consequently, we aimed to develop a new interpretation bias task for young children using tones. Children learnt to associate high tones with a 'happy alien' and low tones with an 'angry alien'. They were then asked to classify tones from the middle of the frequency range (ambiguous tones) as 'happy' or 'angry'. Corrugator muscle activity was recorded alongside behavioural responses. A community sample of 110 children aged 4-8 years, split into high and low anxious groups, completed the task. High anxious children were more likely to interpret the ambiguous tones as negative but this effect was small and only apparent after controlling for developmental factors. Corrugator activity aligned with behavioural responses for trained but not ambiguous tones. This is the first study to assess interpretation bias in young children using behavioural and physiological measures. Results indicate the task is developmentally appropriate and has potential utility for future research.
Keywords
Anxiety/psychology, Association Learning/physiology, Child, Child, Preschool, Electromyography, Emotions/physiology, Facial Muscles/physiology, Female, Humans, Judgment/physiology, Male, Social Perception, Ambiguity, Anxiety, Development, FEMG, Interpretation bias, Young children
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
17/09/2019 17:12
Last modification date
23/04/2024 6:00
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