Anxiety has been observed as a factor capable to influence the visual selective attention in experiments such as the Visual Probe Detection Task (VPDT). This study aimed to compare the attentional bias to emotional images in people with different levels of trait and state anxiety using a VPDT. Eighty-two undergraduate students performed VPDT and answered the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. In VPDT, 12 pairs of images from International Affective Picture System (emotional image with high arousal level and negative valence/and one control, neutral) were presented during 200 m. There was no attentional bias difference between the participants neither with low nor high levels of trait or state of anxiety. These results indicated that trait or state anxiety might not be important to attentional bias to negative and arousing visual stimuli. It is possible that just clinical populations with anxiety disorders often show attentional bias to anxiogenic stimuli.
anxiety; Visual Probe Detection Task; selective attention
