Investigating Attention Patterns in Young People With Anxiety

Investigating Attention Patterns in Young People With Anxiety

Adolescents with elevated anxiety have been found to direct their voluntary and involuntary attention more readily toward threatening stimuli, and spend more time dwelling upon that stimuli. Various computerised tasks have been developed to attempt to retrain these "attention biases" back away from threat.

This study will test a newly developed intervention, that uses (eye-tracking) methods to track the gaze of the individual. This intervention is called Gaze-Contingent Music Reward Training (GC-MRT), and is designed to re-train the individual away from dwelling upon threatening stimuli (emotional faces), using their favourite music to re-infornce this learning.

Inclusion Criteria:

• 12-18 years of age upon study commencement
• Diagnosed generalised or social anxiety disorder (assessed by SCID)
• Informed written and witnessed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

• Psychosis
• Autism
• Learning difficulties
• Uncorrected abnormal vision
• Current use of SSRIs