Anxiety sensitivity and cognitive biases for threat

Patients with panic disorder are characterized by elevated scores on the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI; Reiss, Peterson, Gursky, & McNally, 1986) and by interpretive, attentional, and memory biases favoring the processing of threatening information (McNally, 1994, pp. 123-132). Although longitudinal research indicates that elevated ASI scores predict the occurrence of spontaneous panic (Schmidt, Lerew, & Jackson, 1997), it is unclear whether high anxiety sensitivity is premorbidly associated with information-processing biases that may themselves reflect cognitive risk for panic. To address this issue, we had 63 individuals who reported no history of spontaneous panic perform interpretive, attentional, and memory tasks similar to those revealing threat-related cognitive biases in panic disorder patients. Subjects completed the ASI as well as other potential predictors of cognitive bias (e.g., measures of state and trait anxiety). The results indicated that ASI scores predicted one measure of interpretive bias, but little else. Although elevated ASI scores appear to reflect cognitive risk for panic attacks, cognitive bias variables rarely correlate strongly with this risk factor.