Eye Movement Assessment of Emotional Processing in Anxiety

Eye fixations of participants high or low in trait anxiety were monitored during reading of context sentences predicting threatening or nonthreat events, followed by sentences in which a target word represented the predictable event or an inconsistent event. No effects were found on the target word but on the regions following it. When this word represented a threatening event suggested by the context, high anxiety facilitated reading of the posttarget region. When the target word was inconsistent with a threatening event, high anxiety was associated with interference in the final region. No such effects occurred with nonthreat sentences. This reveals selective prediction of threat in high anxiety. However, rather than being automatic, this bias involves elaboration that takes time to develop.