According to Eysenck, MacLeod & Mathews (1987) and Mathews (2004) the dot-probe task derives directly from research carried out by Christos Halkiopoulos in 1981. Halkiopoulos, later a doctoral student of Eysenck, carried out this research while he was a psychology undergraduate at UCL, under the supervision of professor N.F. Dixon. He introduced an attentional probe paradigm, which he initially used in the auditory modality to assess attentional biases to threatening auditory information, when threatening and non-threatening information was presented simultaneously to both ears in a dichotic listening task (Halkiopoulos (1981)Mathews, 1990). Halkiopoulos demonstrated attentional biases by measuring reaction times to auditory probes following neutral and emotional words in the attended and the unattended channels. The method was used in the visual modality (also known as the visual-probe task) by MacLeod, Mathews and Tata (1986)  . As professor Mathews puts it when in an interview he discusses his team's research and his collaboration with Eysenck: "Then Michael Eysenck made contact, and we picked the idea for the dot probe method from his student, Christos Halkiopoulos. I certainly remember that being a really funny time" (Mathews in Borkovec, 2004, p.13).    References
According to Eysenck, MacLeod & Mathews (1987) and Mathews (2004) the dot-probe task derives directly from research carried out by Christos Halkiopoulos in 1981. Halkiopoulos, later a doctoral student of Eysenck, carried out this research while he was a psychology undergraduate at UCL, under the supervision of professor N.F. Dixon. He introduced an attentional probe paradigm, which he initially used in the auditory modality to assess attentional biases to threatening auditory information, when threatening and non-threatening information was presented simultaneously to both ears in a dichotic listening task (Halkiopoulos (1981)Mathews, 1990). Halkiopoulos demonstrated attentional biases by measuring reaction times to auditory probes following neutral and emotional words in the attended and the unattended channels. This method was subsequently used in the visual modality by MacLeod, Mathews and Tata (1986) in what came to be knows as the dot probe paradigm . As professor Mathews puts it when in an interview he discusses his team's research and his collaboration with Eysenck: "Then Michael Eysenck made contact, and we picked the idea for the dot probe method from his student, Christos Halkiopoulos. I certainly remember that being a really funny time" (Mathews in Borkovec, 2004, p.13). Halkiopoulos's initial research is well described by Eysenck, MacLeod and Mathews (1987) and, in some more technical detail, by Eysenck (1991). Eysenck, M. W> (1991)Trait anxiety and cognition. in C. D. Spielberger, I.G., Sarason, Z. Kulczar J. Van Heck (Eds.), Stress and Emotion (Vol. 14). Hemisphere. References
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The method was
This method was subsequently
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(also known as the visual-probe task)
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in what came to be knows as the dot probe paradigm
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Halkiopoulos's initial research is well described by Eysenck, MacLeod and Mathews (1987) and, in some more technical detail, by Eysenck (1991).
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Eysenck, M. W> (1991)Trait anxiety and cognition. in C. D. Spielberger, I.G., Sarason, Z. Kulczar
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J. Van Heck (Eds.), Stress and Emotion (Vol. 14). Hemisphere.