Attentional Bias towards Threat: Facilitated Attentional Orienting or Impaired Attentional Disengagement?

attentional bias towards threat is a common phenomenon in anxious as well as healthy individuals. There are two potential cognitive mechanisms of attentional bias. The facilitated attentional orienting is known as threat stimuli are detected faster than neutral stimuli. The impaired attentional disengagement is defined as harder to disengage attention from threat stimuli compare to neutral stimuli. The amygdalaanterior cingulate cortex network is the potential neural base of facilitated attentional orienting, while the orbitofrontal cortex is the key area of attentional disengagement. The properties of threat stimuli and characteristic of participants are main factors which affect attentional bias. The future studies should focus on the relationship between attentional orienting and attentional disengagement as well as the neural base of attentional bias.