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Ms Erin Parker will present: Anxiety disorders - the current state of treatment in primary care settings

Anxiety disorders have the highest prevalence of any mental illness in Australia, and are managed predominantly in primary care settings. Although primary mental health care may be delivered in a range of settings (e.g., community health centres, allied health practices, online), and by a range of health professionals, general practitioners (GPs) provide more services than any other provider type. Treatment options are limited for GPs who do not typically have training in evidence-based psychological interventions, such as cognitive behavioural therapy. Treatments provided by GPs therefore tend to be pharmacological, against clinical practice guidelines. The current systematic review seeks to determine the efficacy of treating anxiety disorders in primary care, for both pharmacological and psychological treatments.

Ms Rebecca Lawrence will present: Did you notice that? Growing older shapes how we use spatial attention

The ability to vary the spatial region over which our attentional resources are deployed is necessary for effective interaction with the visual world. Although it is well known that growing older influences a number of physical and psychological processes, the effect of ageing on the spatial spread of attention remains unclear. The aim of the current study was to address this using an inhibition of return (IOR) task to measure attentional spread. Past research using this measure suggests minimal age differences in attentional spread. However, these studies used placeholder stimuli, which evidence indicates can constrain the spatial spread of attention. This may have lowered the sensitivity of previous studies to detect potential age differences.  To address this, in Experiment One, we measured the relationship between the spatial spread of attention and healthy aging using an IOR task which did not employ placeholders. In contrast to past research, we found a reliable age difference in attentional spread, where in comparison to younger adults, older adults exhibited a relatively restricted spread of attention.  Experiment Two then confirmed these findings by directly comparing attentional spread for placeholder present and placeholder absent conditions, across younger and older adults. Again, it was found that age differences emerged, but only in the placeholder absent condition. This indicates that the use of placeholders in previous research did indeed constrain the spatial spread of attention, preventing underlying age differences from being observed. Potential reasons for narrower attentional spread with ageing are discussed, such as changes in working memory and vision across the lifespan.