Fax +41 61 306 12 34 E-Mail karger@karger.ch www.karger.com Original Paper Psychopathology 2008;41:179–186 DOI: 10.1159/000120986 Attention Bias in Children of Patients with Panic Disorder Silvia Schneider a Suzan Unnewehr c Tina In-Albon a Jürgen Margraf b a Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, and b Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland; c Psychotherapeutische Praxis, Berlin, Germany that cognitive processes are crucial for the maintenance of this disorder [2–5]. Studies investigating cognitive bi- ases provide convincing empirical support for the notion that panic disorder is associated with various cognitive biases, such as an attentional bias. In investigating the at- tentional bias, an emotional Stroop task can be applied. In the procedure of the emotional Stroop task, the par- ticipant is required to name the color of threat-related words and neutral words as quickly as possible, while ig- noring the meaning of the words. Delays in processing the color of the words (‘Stroop interference effect’) occur when the meaning of the word attracts the subjects’ at- tention, despite their efforts to attend to the ink of the word. Consequently, higher interference scores reflect an increased attentional bias, which is defined as the delay in color naming of threatening words compared to neu- tral words. With respect to attentional bias in individuals with panic disorder, the emotional Stroop task has been used in several studies [6–9]. The results of these studies indi- cate that panic patients demonstrate Stroop interference effects for panic-relevant words, especially words refer- ring to various kinds of catastrophic consequences, but also words referring to fear and body sensations [9] . Overall, these results support an association between attentional bias and panic disorder. However, the design of these studies cannot address the question whether this bias precedes the disorder and contributes to its etiology or whether it is a consequence of the disorder and mainly contributes to its maintenance. A possibility to examine this question is to study people longitudinally who are at Key Words Attentional bias  Childhood anxiety  Panic disorder  Emotional Stroop task Abstract Cognitive models of panic disorder have emphasized the role of cognitive distortions in the maintenance of this disor- der. Several studies have produced results consistent with this hypothesis, but it is still unclear whether cognitive bi- ases precede anxiety disorders or whether they are a conse- quence of the disorder. In the present study, we compared children of individuals with panic disorder, children of indi- viduals with animal phobia, and children of normal controls with respect to attentional bias with an emotional Stroop task, which included three types of words: panic-relevant, animal phobia-relevant, and neutral words. Our results re- vealed that children of panic patients did not show an atten- tional bias for panic-relevant stimuli. Results will be dis- cussed in the context of theoretical models explaining the etiological factor of cognitive biases for the development of anxiety disorders. Copyright © 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel Introduction Over the past two decades, many clinical researchers have been interested in elucidating the cognitive process- es underlying panic disorder [1]. Indeed, influential psy- chological models of anxiety disorders have postulated Received: January 8, 2007 Accepted after revision: July 3, 2007 Published online: March 13, 2008 Silvia Schneider, PhD Institut für Psychologie, Abteilung Klinische Kinder- und Jugendpsychologie Universität Basel, Missionsstrasse 60/62 CH–4055 Basel (Switzerland) Tel. +41 61 267 06 50, Fax +41 61 267 03 39, E-Mail silvia.schneider@unibas.ch © 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel 0254–4962/08/0413–0179$24.50/0 Accessible online at: www.karger.com/psp