Behaviour research and therapy
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A modified version of the probe detection task was used to investigate the effect of stimulus exposure duration on attentional bias for threat stimuli in a non-clinical sample of subjects. Stimulus duration was manipulated in order to examine different components of the anxiety-related attentional bias, i.e. initial orienting versus maintenance of attention to threat. ⋯ This bias was not significantly affected by the exposure duration of the word stimuli. Thus, the attentional bias for threat does not appear to vary significantly over this range (100-1,500 msec) in non-clinical anxiety; it is recommended that the time course of the attentional bias be investigated further in clinical anxiety.