Extensive research has examined attention bias to threat in the context of anxiety in adults, but little is understood about this association in young children, and there is a dearth of longitudinal research examining whether attention bias to threat predicts anxiety over time in childhood. In the current study, a sample of 180 children participated in a longitudinal study, first as preschoolers and again as they transitioned to formal schooling. At baseline, children aged 3-4 years completed a free-viewing eye-tracking task with angry-neutral and happy-neutral face pairs and an assessment of behavioral inhibition (BI). At follow-up, parents provided daily reports of their child's state anxiety over a 2-week period as their child started school and completed a measure of their child's anxiety symptoms. Results indicated that, on average, preschool-aged children exhibit a bias for emotional faces that is stronger for angry than happy faces. There was little evidence that this bias was associated with anxiety symptoms. However, BI interacted with dwell bias for angry faces to predict trajectories of anxiety over the transition to school. An unexpected interaction between BI and dwell bias for happy faces was also found, with dwell for happy faces associated with lower anxiety for children higher in BI. The findings are consistent with recent developmental models of the BI-anxiety relationship and indicate that attention bias modification may not be suitable for young children, for whom attention bias to threat may be normative. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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儿童入学时的焦虑轨迹：行为抑制和注意力偏向生气和快乐面孔的作用。

广泛的研究已经检查了成年人在焦虑中对注意力的偏向，但是对于这种关联在年幼的儿童中了解甚少，并且缺乏纵向研究来考察对威胁的偏见是否预示了儿童时期的焦虑。在当前的研究中，样本的180名儿童参加了纵向研究，首先是学龄前儿童，然后是他们过渡到正规学校。在基线时，3-4岁的儿童完成了带有愤怒中性和快乐中性面孔对的自由观看眼动任务，并评估了行为抑制（BI）。在随访中，父母在孩子开始上学并完成了对孩子焦虑症状的评估后，每天提供两周内孩子的状态焦虑的报告。结果表明，平均而言，学龄前儿童对情感面孔的偏见比对幸福面孔的偏见要强。几乎没有证据表明这种偏见与焦虑症状有关。但是，BI与偏向生气的面孔的居家偏见相互作用，以预测过渡到学校期间的焦虑轨迹。还发现BI和幸福面孔的居留偏见之间存在意想不到的交互作用，而BI幸福程度较高的孩子的焦虑与较低的生存有关。这些发现与BI-焦虑关系的最新发展模型一致，并表明注意偏见的改变可能不适合幼儿，因为对于威胁的注意偏见可能是正常的。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2020 APA，保留所有权利）。