Anticipation-specific reliability and trial-to-trial carryover of anticipatory attentional bias for threat

ABSTRACT

Concerns have been raised about the reliability of dot-probe tasks. The cued Visual Probe Task (cVPT) uses cues predicting locations of emotional stimuli, which appears to improve reliability. However, cVPT reliability could be affected by individual differences involving cue features. Here, we assessed specifically anticipatory reliability. Further, trial-to-trial carryover effects, previously found for stimulus-evoked biases, were tested. 82 participants were analysed, who performed an online procedure including a reversal of the cue mapping. Predicted stimulus categories were neutral and angry faces. Cue-Stimulus Intervals of 400 and 1000?ms were used. An overall anticipatory attentional bias, in terms of RT difference scores, towards threat was found. Reliability was around .4, similar to previous results despite the mapping reversal procedure. Carryover effects were found with a similar pattern as for non-cued threat-evoked bias. The results confirm a reasonably reliable outcome-focused bias towards threat, showing similar carryover effects as found for stimulus-evoked bias.     

Cortisol,stress, and attentional bias toward threat

Abstract

Attentional bias toward threatening stimuli is a central characteristic of anxiety and acute stress. Recent small-scale studies have provided divergent perspectives on the association between the stress hormone cortisol and attentional bias toward threat cues. In a larger sample size than previous studies, we examined this association by investigating the impact of cortisol on attentional bias in two studies using a psychological stressor (N=35) and a physical stressor (N=65), respectively. Attentional bias and salivary cortisol were measured prior to and following the administration of a stressful task designed to increase cortisol levels. Results across these studies were equivocal relative to the association between baseline cortisol and baseline attentional bias. In addition, the association between acute change in cortisol and change in attentional bias appeared to differ as a function of the presence or absence of psychological stress. There was a trend toward a stronger negative association between acute cortisol change and attentional bias change among women relative to men. These results imply that the association between cortisol and attentional bias may be moderated by additional factors, such as gender or presence of stress.     

Intergenerational transmission of attentional bias and anxiety

Earlier evidence has revealed a bi‐directional causal relationship between anxiety and attention biases in adults and children. This study investigated the prospective and concurrent relations between anxiety and attentional bias in a sample of 89 families (mothers, fathers, and first‐born children). Parents’ and children's attentional bias was measured when children were 7.5 years old, using both a visual probe task and visual search task with angry versus happy facial expressions. Generalized and social anxiety symptoms in parents and children were measured when children were 4.5 and 7.5 years old. Anxiety in parents and children was prospectively (but not concurrently) related to their respective attentional biases to threat: All participants showed a larger attentional bias to threat in the visual search (but not in the visual probe) task if they were more anxious at the 4.5 (but not at the 7.5) year measurement. Moreover, parents’ anxiety levels were prospectively predictive of the visual search attentional bias of their children after controlling for child anxiety. More anxiety in mothers at 4.5 years was related to a faster detection of angry among happy faces, while more anxiety in fathers predicted a faster detection of happy among angry faces in children at 7.5 years. We found no direct association between parental and child attentional biases. Our study contributes to the recently emerging literature on attentional biases as a potential mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety by showing that parents’ anxiety rather than parents’ attentional bias contributes to the intergenerational transmission of risk for child anxiety.     

The interaction effect of attentional bias and attentional control on dispositional anxiety among adolescents

Research has shown that children and adolescents with attentional control deficits tend to have high anxiety and exhibit threat‐related selective attentional bias. This study aimed to investigate how positive and negative attentional biases would interact with attentional control on dispositional anxiety. One hundred and twenty participants aged 18 years of age or younger participated in a visual dot‐probe task to measure their attentional bias and completed psychological questionnaires to measure their trait anxiety, and attentional control. Mean reaction times to the probe in milliseconds were used to measure attentional bias. Overall, our participants showed a bigger tendency towards attending to positive emotional stimuli than to negative emotional stimuli. Adolescents with high dispositional anxiety showed poorer attentional control. Regression analyses showed that attentional control interact with negative attentional bias to affect anxiety. For participants with high attentional control, higher negative attentional bias was associated with lower trait anxiety. Trait anxiety was not related to negative attentional bias for participants with low attentional control. Positive attentional bias showed no significant relationship with dispositional anxiety, either alone or in interaction with attentional control. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are also discussed.     

Anxiety sensitivity and attentional bias to threat interact to prospectively predict anxiety

The purpose of the present study was to examine anxiety sensitivity, attentional bias to threat (ABT), and the aggregate influence of these constructs as prospective predictors of anxiety. Participants (N = 176) completed a baseline assessment session which included the completion of self-report measures of anxiety and anxiety sensitivity, as well as an eye-tracking task in which eye movements were recorded during the viewing of neutral and threat images. Measures of anxiety and anxiety sensitivity were completed again as part of an online questionnaire battery at a 1-year follow-up session. As predicted, baseline anxiety sensitivity and ABT predicted anxiety at 1-year follow-up even after accounting for baseline anxiety. However, these main effects were qualified by a significant interaction effect such that those high in anxiety sensitivity at baseline reported relatively higher anxiety at the 1-year follow-up, but only if they also exhibited higher levels of ABT at baseline. Results suggest that individuals with this combination of vulnerability factors (high levels of both anxiety sensitivity and ABT) may be at particularly high risk for developing anxiety and may benefit from preemptive efforts to reduce ABT.     

威胁性刺激注意偏向的时间进程

注意偏向各成分间关系及发生时间进程尚存争议。本研究以情绪图片为刺激,采用类别判断任务,通过眼动技术探讨正常个体对威胁性刺激注意偏向的时间进程。结果显示,(1)向左的首次眼跳概率高于向右,而潜伏期短于向右,存在左侧偏向;(2)注意回避发生在250ms以内,解除锁定困难发生在400ms之后;(3)注意偏向影响类别判断过程。结果表明,注意回避与左侧偏向在威胁性刺激注意偏向形成早期存在相互作用,且比解除锁定困难更早发生。     

创伤后应激障碍个体对威胁刺激的注意偏向：眼动研究的证据

对威胁刺激的注意偏向是创伤后应激障碍(PTSD)个体的一种表现。近年来, 研究者利用眼动技术探讨了注意偏向的加工特点及其内在机制。尽管针对是否存在注意定向加速、注意解除困难或注意回避的研究结果并不一致, 但都试图为验证如警戒-回避模型、注意保持模型等提供眼动证据。未来研究在记录PTSD个体注视模式时, 不仅需要从多个维度构建、整合PTSD个体的眼动模型, 也要结合多种技术从多模态角度共同考察PTSD个体的威胁信息注意偏向机制。     

Emotional intelligence and attentional bias for threat‐related emotion under stress

Emotional intelligence (EI ) can buffer potentially harmful effects of situational and chronic stressors to safeguard psychological wellbeing (e.g., Mikolajczak, Petrides, Coumans & Luminet, 2009 ), yet understanding how and when EI operates to promote adaptation remains a research priority. We explored whether EI (both trait and ability) modulated early attentional processing of threat‐related emotion under conditions of stress. Using a dot probe paradigm, eye movement (fixation to emotive facial stimuli, relative to neutral) and manual reaction time data were collected from 161 adults aged 18–57 years (mean age = 25.24; SD = 8.81) exposed to either a stressful (failure task) or non‐stressful (control) situation. Whilst emotion management ability and trait wellbeing corresponded to avoidance of negative emotion (angry and sad respectively), high trait sociability and emotionality related to a bias for negative emotions. With most effects not restricted to stressful conditions, it is unclear whether EI underscores ‘adaptive’ processing, which carries implications for school‐based social and emotional learning programs.     

The Influence of Anticipatory Processing on Attentional Biases in Social Anxiety

Research on cognitive theories of social anxiety disorder (SAD) has identified individual processes that influence this condition (e.g., cognitive biases, repetitive negative thinking), but few studies have attempted to examine the interaction between these processes. For example, attentional biases and anticipatory processing are theoretically related and have been found to influence symptoms of SAD, but they rarely have been studied together (i.e., Clark & Wells, 1995). Therefore, the goal of the current study was to examine the effect of anticipatory processing on attentional bias for internal (i.e., heart rate feedback) and external (i.e., emotional faces) threat information. A sample of 59 participants high (HSA) and low (LSA) in social anxiety symptoms engaged in a modified dot-probe task prior to (Time 1) and after (Time 2) an anticipatory processing or distraction task. HSAs who anticipated experienced an increase in attentional bias for internal information from Time 1 to Time 2, whereas HSAs in the distraction condition and LSAs in either condition experienced no changes. No changes in biases were found for HSAs for external biases, but LSAs who engaged in the distraction task became less avoidant of emotional faces from Time 1 to Time 2. This suggests that anticipatory processing results in an activation of attentional biases for physiological information as suggested by Clark and Wells.     

Early mechanism of negativity bias: An attentional blink study1

Abstract: The negativity bias is the perceptual phenomena whereby an emotionally negative stimulus is processed faster than a positive or neutral stimulus. We used the attentional blink paradigm to investigate whether attentional resources are required to obtain the negativity bias. Positive, negative or neutral words were used as a preceding target (T1) and/or a subsequent target (T2). Experiment 1 showed that the negativity bias occurred, because the attentional blink was reduced by a negative T2, but not by a positive or neutral T2. Experiment 2 indicated that a negative T1 grabbed attentional resources, interfering with the identification of a neutral T2. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the report of a negative T2 deteriorated when T1 was also negative. We conclude that attentional resources were required for the occurrence of the negativity bias.     

Longevity of attentional bias modification effects for food cues in overweight and obese individuals

Accumulating evidence shows that overweight individuals exhibit an attentional bias for food and that this bias can be modified. This study investigated the longevity of such modification effects. Using a dot probe paradigm, a community sample of overweight and obese women (N = 104) was trained to direct attention towards (‘attend’) or away from (‘avoid’) food pictures. Participants completed five weekly training sessions. Attentional bias was measured before and after training, at 24 h and one-week follow-up. To increase generalisability, at each of the post-training and follow-up assessments, participants were shown a mix of old and new food pictures. They also completed another implicit bias measure, i.e. a word stem task. Attentional bias for food increased in the ‘attend’ group and decreased in the ‘avoid’ group. These retraining effects were maintained at 24 h and one-week follow-up, and extended to new food pictures. Participants in the ‘avoid’ group also produced relatively fewer food words on the word stem task than those in the ‘attend’ group. Results are consistent with predictions of cognitive-motivational models that attentional biases are malleable. They further suggest that attentional bias modification, which targets the implicit processes that underlie the heightened food responsivity in overweight individuals, could help combat pathological (over)eating.     

No attentional bias for pictoral stimuli in spider-fearful subjects

A number of experiments have shown that (spider) fearful subjects direct their attention to fear-relevant words, even when these words are irrelevant to the completion of a target task (e.g., color naming). The present study examined whether subjects with an intense fear of spiders also display such attentional bias for a fear-relevant pictoral stimulus. Female spider-fearful (n=13) and control subjects (n=13) saw neutral patterns (i.e., horizontal and vertical bars). One pattern served as target for a reaction time, while the other pattern served as nontarget. Targets and nontargets were accompanied by either fear-relevant or neutral pictoral material (i.e., a picture of a spider or a picture of a flower, respectively). The fear-relevant picture did not selectively delibate reaction time performance of spider-fearful subjects. Thus, no evidence was found for an attentional bias for fear-relevant pictoral material in subjects with an intense fear of spiders. Instead, fearful subjects exhibited a general inhibition of performance which became stronger over trials. This suggests that the fear-relevant picture induced a state of anxious arousal or defensive withdrawal that interfered with reaction time performance on both fear-relevant and neutral trials.     

The effects of attentional training on physiological stress recovery after induced social threat

Abstract

Social stress has been related to both physiological and psychological responses. The recovery of stress is influenced by the way environmental information is processed, i.e., what information is attended to and how it is interpreted. The present study investigated the effect of attention modification training on physiological stress recovery following induced stress. A group of applicants preparing for a job interview were randomly allocated to an attention training condition versus a control condition. Afterwards, they were asked to give an artificial job interview to a real life jury while being videotaped. Participants in both conditions showed decreased heart rate variability during the job interview, which indicates an overall physiological stress response. However, during a 30-minute follow-up period after the training, indices of heart rate variability showed improved stress recovery only in the attention training condition. Attentional training is proposed as a promising strategy to prevent enduring stress reactions.     

Anxiety-linked attentional bias: backward glances and future glimpses

ABSTRACT

This brief reflection considers some of the important developments in anxiety-linked attentional bias research that have marked the three decades since the launch of Cognition and Emotion, and also identifies several challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. I suggest that the steady increase in our capacity to distinguish differing facets of attentional bias and alternative dimensions of anxiety vulnerability, together with the advent of attentional bias modification techniques that can illuminate causality, has enriched theoretical understanding and created the exciting potential for clinical translation. In order to fully capitalise on this potential, I propose that researchers should address the challenge of enhancing the psychometric properties of our assessment measures, and developing training procedures that not only modify attentional bias more effectively, but that motivate sustained patient engagement. I end with some personal advice to young investigators developing their research careers within this stimulating and rewarding field of scientific inquiry.     

Theory of mind and attentional bias to facial emotional expressions: A preliminary study

Ribeiro, L. A. & Fearon, P. (2010). Theory of mind and attentional bias to facial emotional expressions: A preliminary study. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Theory of mind ability has been associated with performance in interpersonal interactions and has been found to influence aspects such as emotion recognition, social competence, and social anxiety. Being able to attribute mental states to others requires attention to subtle communication cues such as facial emotional expressions. Decoding and interpreting emotions expressed by the face, especially those with negative valence, are essential skills to successful social interaction. The current study explored the association between theory of mind skills and attentional bias to facial emotional expressions. According to the study hypothesis, individuals with poor theory of mind skills showed preferential attention to negative faces over both non‐negative faces and neutral objects. Tentative explanations for the findings are offered emphasizing the potential adaptive role of vigilance for threat as a way of allocating a limited capacity to interpret others’ mental states to obtain as much information as possible about potential danger in the social environment.     

A review of existing measures of attentional biases in body image and eating disorders research

Cognitive theories emphasise the important role of attentional biases in the development and maintenance of body image issues and eating pathology. A wealth of research has been conducted to examine attentional biases toward body‐related information among individuals with eating pathology. However, there is considerable variability in the methods that have been used to measure attention and, importantly, these methods tap into different attentional processes. Given the multifaceted nature of attention, it is important for researchers to select the right tools to test their hypotheses. This review critically evaluates the attentional measures that have been used in previous research, primarily the modified Stroop task, dot probe task, visual search task, and eyetracking. The strengths and limitations of each measure will be discussed in order to provide a guide for researchers to further investigate the attentional mechanisms underlying body image issues and eating disorders. Overall, we recommend that researchers use a combination of eyetracking technology and specific reaction‐time measures that target the specific attentional mechanism of interest.     

Influence of emotional task relevancy on the temporal dynamic of attentional bias in people with high-trait anxiety

ABSTRACT

It is unknown whether high-trait anxiety (HTA) individuals show facilitated attention or impaired attentional disengagement. In the present study, we have manipulated emotion and task relevance to explore the temporal dynamic of attentional bias in an HTA group via emotional attentional blink (EAB) and emotion-induced blindness (EIB). The results showed that the attentional blink effect was greater in the negative compared to neutral condition. When emotional stimulation was task-irrelevant at lag6, this enhanced effect was only present for the HTA group, indicating impaired attentional disengagement. However, when emotional stimulation was task-relevant at lag4, the enhanced attentional blink was absent for HTA but still present for LTA until lag8, suggesting facilitated attention for HTA. Thus, task relevancy of emotional distractor appears to influence attention biases in HTA individuals. In addition, individual characteristics modulate the magnitude and time window of the attentional blink in the context of EIB and EAB tasks.     

Attentional biases for threat after fear-related autobiographical recall

Background : Previous studies suggested that affective state could enhance stimulus salience and modulate attention allocation for mood-congruent information, but contrasting data have been reported on the effects of mood induction on attentional biases for threat (ABTs) in non-clinical individuals.

Objective : We aimed to assess whether laboratory-induced negative mood can increase individuals’ tendency to allocate attention on threatening stimuli, thus determining a difficulty in attentional disengagement from threat. We also aimed at assessing whether level of trait anxiety could modulate the effect of mood induction on attentional biases.

Methods : We used an autobiographical episode recall procedure for mood induction (fear, happiness and neutral episode recall), and an exogenous cueing task with threatening and non-threatening images to assess attentional biases in 120 undergraduate students.

Results: Participants showed a significant difficulty in disengaging attention from threat after recalling fear-related episodes, independently from their trait anxiety level.

Conclusions: These findings clarify that the ABTs are not exclusive to anxiety disorders or high trait anxiety individuals, and could also arise in non-clinical individuals in a fearful context.     

Frontal and parietal EEG asymmetries interact to predict attentional bias to threat

Frontal and parietal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetries mark vulnerability to depression and anxiety. Drawing on cognitive theories of vulnerability, we hypothesise that cortical asymmetries predict attention to threat. Participants completed a dot-probe task in which bilateral face displays were followed by lateralised targets at either short (300 ms) or long (1050 ms) SOA. We also measured N2pc to face onset as an index of early attentional capture. At long SOA only, frontal and parietal asymmetry interacted to predict attentional bias to angry faces. Those with leftward frontal asymmetry showed no attentional bias. Among those with rightward frontal asymmetry those with low right parietal activity showed vigilance for threat, and those with high right parietal activity showed avoidance. Asymmetry was not related to the N2pc or to attentional bias at the short SOA. Findings suggest that trait asymmetries reflect function in a fronto-parietal network that controls attention to threat.