Stucture of Problem 2, Block 2.6. Stress and Anxiety, NO summary ONLY overview

A) Attentional bias and anxiety disorders
What are main experimental tasks and findings supporting attentional bias in anxiety
disorders?
 Measurement of AB (Stroop, Dichotic Listening, Dot Probe Task, Visual
search, Spatial Cueing & Eye Tracking)
 Studies (Developmental, Prospective, Experimental studies)
What are the major models of biased attention in anxiety disorders?
 Theoretical models of Attention Bias
o Biased attentional Direction Account (Williams)
o Cognitive-motivational model (Mogg and Bradley)
o Self-regulatory executive function model (Wells & Mathews)
o Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck)

B) Learning mechanisms and anxiety disorders
What is Pavlovian fear conditioning and what are typical outcome measures of fear
responses?
 Definition & Process of conditioning
 Verbal, Physiological (Startle response, Skin conductance) & Behavioral
measures
Why is the Pavlovian model too simple?
 Face validity, Construct validity and Predictive validity (criticisms on the
model)
How is extinction learning related to treatment approaches of anxiety disorders?
 Fear extinction (process)
 Fear extinction in Anxiety Disorders e.g. PTSD
 Circuit of extinction and other approaches (D-cycloserine, Exposure therapy,
and other approaches)