Naturalistic and stationary attention measures reveal temperament-attention-anxiety relations

Recent work from CAT Lab researcher Xiaoxue (Jessie) Fu examined how the use of both traditional stationary eye-tracking paradigms and a novel mobile eye-tracking paradigm could elucidate temperament-attention-anxiety relations. Children between the ages of 5 and 7 completed both the dot-probe task while stationary eye-tracking measures were collected and a stranger approach task while mobile eye-tracking measures were collected. Dr. Fu found that affect-biased attention to threat, as measured by the dot-probe task, was related to naturalistic attention to the stranger, only in children exhibiting high levels of behavioral inhibition. The results suggest that behaviorally inhibited children may exhibit more consistent patterns of affect-biased attention and provide evidence that both naturalistic and stationary measures of attention may be integral for understanding individual differences in socio-emotional processing.

The full paper can be read in Development and Psychopathology.