Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders

Empirical Status of the Cognitive Model 61

Finally, results of an emotional Stroop experiment on PTSD led to the conclusion that
an elevation in stress or arousal might enhance automatic threat bias whereas anticipa-
tion of a more potent threat might suppress attentional bias (Constans, McCloskey,
Vasterling, Brailey, & Mathews, 2004).
There is some evidence that treatment responders do show a significant decline
in the interference effects of disorder- specific threat words whereas treatment nonre-
sponders show no change in Stroop interference (Mathews et al., 1995; Mattia, Heim-
berg, & Hope, 1993; Mogg, Bradley, Millar, & White, 1995). In sum, there is consistent
evidence that preferential allocation toward threatening cues occurs at a preconscious,
automatic level of information processing in both clinically anxious and high trait-
anxious individuals. The emotional Stroop findings are less consistent when it comes to
demonstrating attentional biases at the slower, elaborative level of information process-
ing.

figure 3.1. Illustration of the subliminal and supraliminal conditions in a modified emotional
Stroop task.

SUBLIMINAL CONDITION

Exposure time (< 20 msec) Masked Stimuli

Color-Naming Response

Answers

“red” for color of word

OR

(^) color ofAnswers “red” for background
SUPRALIMINAL CONDITION
Exposure time
(> 500 msec)
Answers “red” for
color of word
Color-Naming Response
XXXXXXXXXX
(printed in red) (printed in red)
(printed in red)
(background is red)