Information Processing Biases and Anxiety

With contributions from a global team of experts this book provides a comprehensive overview of information processing biases in children and adolescents.

• The first book to provide readers with an understanding of anxiety and the role of information processing biases more broadly in the context of developmental psychopathology
• Demonstrates how researchers have explored diverse aspects of information processing in anxious children and adolescents
• Draws on the microparadigms used in the study of development and psychopathology to consider issues related to heritability, temperament, learning and parenting
• Considers preventative methods and treatment protocols

List of Contributors.

Preface.

1. An Introduction to the Study of Information Processing Biases in Childhood Anxiety: Theoretical and Methodological Issues (Julie A. Hadwin and Andy P. Field).

Theoretical and Research Issues.

2. Anxiety-Related Reasoning Biases in Children and Adolescents (Peter Muris).

3. The Emotional Stroop Task in Anxious Children (Zoë C. Nightingale, Andy P. Field and Merel Kindt).

4. Selective Attention to Threat in Childhood Anxiety: Evidence from Visual Probe Paradigms (Matthew Garner).

5. The Use of Visual Search Paradigms to Understand Attentional Biases in Childhood Anxiety (Nick Donnelly, Julie A. Hadwin, Tamaryn Menneer and Helen J. Richards).

6. Using Eye Tracking Methodology in Children with Anxiety Disorders (Tina In-Albon and Silvia Schneider).

7. The Assessment of Fear-Related Automatic Associations in Children and Adolescents (Jorg Huijding, Reinout W. Wiers and Andy P. Field).

8. Application of Cognitive Neuroscience Techniques to the Study of Anxiety-Related Processing Biases in Children (Koraly Pérez-Edgar and Yair Bar-Haim).

The Origin and Treatment of Information Processing Biases in Child Anxiety.

9. Genetics (Thalia C. Eley and Helena M.S. Zavos)

10. Temperamental Factors Associated with the Acquisition of Information Processing Biases and Anxiety (Lauren K. White, Sarah M. Helfinstein and Nathan A. Fox).

11. Learning of Information Processing Biases in Anxious Children and Adolescents (Andy P. Field and Kathryn J. Lester).

12. Intergenerational Transmission of Anxious Information Processing Biases (Cathy Creswell, Peter Cooper and Lynne Murray).

13. Attentional Biases in Children: Implications for Treatment (Maria J.W. Cowart and Thomas H. Ollendick)

Index.

Julie A. Hadwin is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Southampton. She has used cognitive models to study emotional disorders in childhood and has written several seminal papers to understand attention to threat in childhood anxiety. Her publications include Teaching Children with Autism to Mind-Read (with Patricia Howlin and Simon Baron-Cohen, Wiley, 1999).

Andy Field is Reader in Experimental Psychopathology at the University of Sussex. He has published over 50 research papers, mostly on child anxiety and human conditioning, and has written/edited 10 books including the award-winning textbook Discovering Statistics using SPSS (3rd Edition, 2009). He has received teaching awards from the University of Sussex and the British Psychological Society.

Anxiety is an emotion that appears early in childhood and follows a typical developmental course. This book provides a comprehensive overview of relevant theory and research related to the origins of information processing biases and its contribution to clinical levels of anxiety in children and adolescents.

Focusing on theoretical and research issues, the book highlights how different researchers have explored diverse aspects of information processing, such as selective attention, inhibition and interpretation, in anxious children and adolescents. It further investigates the origin and treatment of information processing biases in child anxiety within the broader context of developmental psychopathology.

Information Processing Biases and Anxiety: A Developmental Perspective is a unique and up-to-date summary of the development of information processing biases and anxiety in childhood and adolescence, and of the preventive methods and treatment protocols.