Key factors behind various specific phobia subtypes.

While it has been suggested that more than a quarter of the whole population is at risk of developing some form of specific phobia (SP) during their lives, we still know little about the various risk and protective factors and underlying mechanisms. Moreover, although SPs are distinct mental disorder categories, most studies do not distinguish between them, or stress their differences. Thus, our study was manifold.

The interference of negative emotional stimuli on semantic vigilance performance in a dual-task setting.

A large body of previous research has shown that emotional stimuli have an advantage in a wide variety of cognitive processes. This was mainly observed in visual search and working memory tasks. Emotionally charged objects draw and hold attention, are remembered better, and interfere more with the completion of the primary task than neutral ones.

"Finding an Emotional Face" Revisited: Differences in Own-Age Bias and the Happiness Superiority Effect in Children and Young Adults.

People seem to differ in their visual search performance involving emotionally expressive faces when these expressions are seen on faces of others close to their age (peers) compared to faces of non-peers, known as the own-age bias (OAB). This study sought to compare search advantages in angry and happy faces detected on faces of adults and children on a pool of children ( = 77, mean age = 5.57) and adults ( = 68, mean age = 21.