Selective attention for bodily sensations is often found in patients with panic disorder. Whether this may be
the result of fear was investigated in a group of normal subjects. Subjects were made to fear an acceleration in their
heartbeats or an increase in their muscle tension by threatening them with an electric shock should this occur. When
subjects were under threat of these shocks, attention for ECG and EMG feedback was measured. Although the task
seemed sensitive to the manipulation, no evidence was found for selective attention for fear-relevant information.
Several shortcomings of the task are discussed.
