About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 1. Attention, Learning, Memory

Abstract

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Threatening stimuli capture our attention more rapidly than neutral stimuli. This classic "threat superiority effect" (TSE) is one of the most replicated effects in psychology, but there are only a few studies with children. One study with 3-4 year olds found that they showed the effect for stimuli they had a one time frightening experience with, syringes (from vaccination), but not a stimuli for which they had no negative experience with, knives. In the current study, we tested 3-5 year old children (N= 85) recruited from preschools in low-income communities in Cape Town, South Africa. These communities experience high levels of crime, and we hypothesized that unlike the US sample, these children would show the TSE for modern threats such as knives and guns. Children were tested on a touch screen tablet, using a gamified version of the classic visual search task which we called "fast fingers."Specifically, children were shown an array of 9 images, 8 images were of the same type (ropes) and one image was different (snake). Children had to find and tap the image that was different (target) as quickly as possible. The target was either threatening (snake) or neutral but visually similar (spaghetti). Threat stimuli categories included: snakes, syringes, guns, and knives. We found that children were faster and more accurate at detecting threats than visually-matched non-threats, and this was true for each stimuli category tested. These results support the idea that the threat superiority effect, at least for non-biological modern threats, develops early in life based on specific environmental exposure. This is a crucial first step to understanding the relationship between exposure to violence, development of executive functions, and development of attention to threat all of which have implications for future pathological responding (anxiety) or resilience.

Author information

Author	Role
Dr. Anna Blumenthal, Marist College	Presenting author
Dr. Caylee Cook, Wits University	Non-presenting author
Dr. Catherine Draper, Wits University	Non-presenting author
Dr. Isabelle Blanchette, University of Laval	Non-presenting author

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