Evidence of an exponential relationship between attentional bias to threat and anxiety using an original “eye-dot-probe” task

Over the past decade, the anxiety-related attentional bias to threat, widely investigatedthrough the dot-probe task, has faced challenges. First, at an early stage of processing, itremains unclear whether this bias follows a static pattern (vigilance) or fluctuates betweenvigilance and avoidance. Second, methodological and theoretical concerns have been raisedregarding the reliability of the dot-probe task in measuring threat-related attentional bias. Thepresent study aimed to test the hypothesis of a static early expression of attentional bias tothreat using both a classical dot-probe task and a novel eye-dot-probe task, in which responseswere made via ocular saccades. Additionally, we hypothesized that the relationship betweenattentional bias to threat and anxiety follows an exponential rather than linear trajectory. Non-clinical participants completed both tasks along with an anxiety questionnaire. Resultsshowed no consistent relationship between anxiety and either static or fluctuating attentionalbias in the classical dot-probe task. However, in the eye-dot-probe task, an exponentialrelationship emerged between anxiety and static attentional bias toward threat, with asignificant bias observed in high-anxious individuals. These findings provide theoretical andmethodological insights, suggesting that early attentional bias toward threat is static, bestcaptured using eye-movement responses, and follows a non-linear relationship with anxiety,emerging only beyond a critical threshold.