A COMPARISON OF STATIONARY AND MOBILE EYE-TRACKING TECHNOLOGY IN MEASURING BEHAVIORAL INHIBITION IN YOUNG CHILDREN
Open Access
Author:
Vankeuren, Lucas James
Area of Honors:
Information Sciences and Technology
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Dr. Koraly Elisa Pérez-Edgar, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Steven Raymond Haynes, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Eye-Tracking Mobile Eye-Tracking stationary eye-tracking attention biases attention dot-probe stranger approach behavioral inhibition ab to threat
Abstract:
Behavioral Inhibition (BI) is considered the largest risk factor for developing social anxiety. However, most children with BI never go on to develop anxiety. Recent work suggests that an AB towards threat may place children with BI on a trajectory to develop social anxiety. As a result, Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT) has been proposed as a treatment for anxiety by training individuals away from threat. AB towards threat is thought to serve as a causal relationship between BI and anxiety. Yet, the field has had difficulty reproducing the link between AB towards threat and BI, as some studies show AB away from threat or no AB at all. Current methodologies measuring AB have several problems (e.g., unrealistic social settings, non-continuous eye-tracking) which may underline this issue of reproducibility. The current thesis examines the use of mobile eye-tracking as a more naturalistic approach to capturing AB to threat. In doing so, a traditional computer-based AB task (dot-probe) is compared to mobile eye-tracking during a structured laboratory protocol (stranger approach) in a group of 5-year-old children characterized for temperamental risk for anxiety.
