Behaviour Research and Therapy 43 (2005) 1087–1098 Time-course of attention for threatening pictures in high and low trait anxiety Ernst H.W. Koster à , Bruno Verschuere, Geert Crombez, Stefaan Van Damme Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Department of Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium Received 20 February 2004; accepted 23 July 2004 Abstract Cognitive studies about anxiety suggest that the interplay between automatic and strategic biases in attention to threat is related to the persistence of fear. In the present study, the time-course of attention to pictures with varying threat levels was investigated in high trait anxious (HTA, n ¼ 21) and low trait anxious (LTA, n ¼ 22) students. In a visual probe detection task, high and mild threat pictures were presented at three durations: 100, 500, and 1250 ms. Results indicated that all individuals attended to the high threat pictures for the 100 ms condition. Differential responding between HTA and LTA individuals was found for the 500 ms condition: only HTA individuals showed an attentional bias for mild threatening stimuli. For the 1250ms condition, the HTA individuals attended away from high and mild threat pictures. The observed pattern of differential attention to threatening pictures may explain the persistence of fear in HTA individuals. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Selective attention; Time-course; Threat; Anxiety; Avoidance 1. Introduction In the last 20 years, there has been a strong interest in the cognitive processing of threat in high trait anxious (HTA) and low trait anxious (LTA) individuals. Cognitive theories about anxiety propose that HTA individuals have cognitive vulnerabilities at the level of attentive processing of ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/brat 0005-7967/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2004.08.004 à Corresponding author. Tel.: +32-091-264-64-43; fax: +32-091-264-64-89. E-mail address: ernst.koster@ugent.be (E.H.W. Koster).