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Is There Room for ‘Development’ in Developmental Models of Information Processing Biases to Threat in Children and Adolescents?

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Abstract

Clinical and experimental theories assume that processing biases in attention and interpretation are a causal mechanism through which anxiety develops. Despite growing evidence that these processing biases are present in children and, therefore, develop long before adulthood, these theories ignore the potential role of child development. This review attempts to place information processing biases within a theoretical developmental framework. We consider whether child development has no impact on information processing biases to threat (integral bias model), or whether child development influences information processing biases and if so whether it does so by moderating the expression of an existing bias (moderation model) or by affecting the acquisition of a bias (acquisition model). We examine the extent to which these models fit with existing theory and research evidence and outline some methodological issues that need to be considered when drawing conclusions about the potential role of child development in the information processing of threat stimuli. Finally, we speculate about the developmental processes that might be important to consider in future research.

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Notes

  1. We have chosen these three models because we believe that they reflect the main broad ways in which child development influences information processing. As such, these models provide a convenient framework for reviewing the literature.

  2. These two possibilities are extremes, and there is a middle ground: already anxious children become more anxious having acquired a processing bias to threat.

  3. This left-visual field bias is consistent with other research (e.g., Field 2006b; Mogg & Bradley 1999, 2002).

  4. There was some evidence for group differences at 10 months consistent with those at 10 weeks, but the group × intensity interaction was not significant.

  5. This finding suggests a hybrid model that we have not considered in this review—that is an integral bias (the degree of bias in infancy is determined by individual factors) that is later moderated.

  6. The results were rather more complicated than this statement suggests; for non-integrated stimuli (the target and distracter are not integrated into a single stimulus) no bias was found, but for integrated stimuli (the target and distracter are a single entity) a bias was found in the first block of trials but not the second. The important point for our argument is that the predicted change in processing bias with age was not found.

  7. As noted above, there was greater evidence for a processing bias in the first block of trials than the second.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by Economic and Social Research Council grant number RES-062-23-0406 awarded to Andy Field and Sam Cartwright-Hatton.

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Field, A.P., Lester, K.J. Is There Room for ‘Development’ in Developmental Models of Information Processing Biases to Threat in Children and Adolescents?. Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev 13, 315–332 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-010-0078-8

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