Attentional Disruption in the Presence of Negative Automatic Thoughts

The present study examined attentional disruption in the presence of negative automatic thoughts specific to panic and social anxiety. Participants with panic disorder (n = 18), participants with social phobia (n = 19), and nonanxious participants (n = 19) completed a dichotic listening task in which they shadowed ambiguous passages heard in their dominant ear while ignoring lists of panic-related, social anxiety-related, or control automatic thoughts that were presented in their non-dominant ear. In addition, they completed a simultaneous simple reaction time task. Both patient groups made more shadowing distortions than the nonanxious group. Panic participants committed more shadowing omissions in trials in which they heard panic-related automatic thoughts as compared to trials in which they heard other automatic thoughts. Results suggest that both patient groups experienced some disruption on this demanding task but that only panic patients exhibited an anxiety-specific attentional bias.