Investigating Attention Patterns in Young People With Anxiety (ATTN-ANX)

Adolescents with elevated anxiety have been found to direct their voluntary and involuntary attention more readily toward threatening stimuli, and spend more time dwelling upon that stimuli. Various computerised tasks have been developed to attempt to retrain these "attention biases" back away from threat. This study will test a newly developed intervention, that uses (eye-tracking) methods to track the gaze of the individual. This intervention is called Gaze-Contingent Music Reward Training (GC-MRT), and is designed to re-train the individual away from dwelling upon threatening stimuli (emotional faces), using their favourite music to re-infornce this learning.

Passive viewing task with continuous music for eight 20-minute sessions - twice per week over 4 weeks.

Participants will hear their selected music track playing, dependent on their gaze location, when viewing a grid on neutral and negative faces.

Participants will hear their selected music track playing, regardless of their gaze location, when viewing a grid on neutral and negative faces.

Change in anxiety symptoms from baseline at 4-weeks on the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders (KSADS), and at 3-month follow up

Change in self-report anxiety symptoms from baseline at 4-weeks on the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED), and at 3-month follow up.

Change in dwell time on negative faces, from baseline at 4-weeks, using eye-tracking measures on a free-viewing attention task, and at 3-month follow up.

Inclusion Criteria: 12-18 years of age upon study commencement Diagnosed generalised or social anxiety disorder (assessed by SCID) Informed written and witnessed consent Exclusion Criteria: Psychosis Autism Learning difficulties Uncorrected abnormal vision Current use of SSRIs