抑郁个体对情绪信息的注意偏向

抑郁障碍个体的注意偏向是抑郁认知研究中的重要问题。近年研究的焦点从对抑郁障碍个体的注意偏向特点、理论机制等转向了对抑郁障碍个体的注意偏向矫正效果和作用机制等的研究。本文从三个方面讨论了抑郁障碍个体对情绪信息的注意偏向:(1)抑郁个体注意偏向的特点。(2)抑郁个体注意偏向的机制。(3)抑郁个体注意偏向的矫治方法。在此基础...     

社交焦虑个体对于不同威胁信息的注意偏向

目的:研究社交焦虑个体对不同类型词语的注意偏向。方法:被试41名,采用情绪Stroop范式,研究词与非词不同比例条件下高低社交焦虑个体对不同类型词(被关注词、被评价词、躯体威胁性词、中性词和非词)的注意偏向。结果:在词和非词比例高的条件下,高社交焦虑组在负性评价词和受他人关注词上的Stroop效应显著大于低社交焦虑组。结论:高社交焦虑个体对负性评价和他人关注的词语存在注意偏向。     

焦虑和抑郁对正负性注意偏向的影响：注意控制的中介作用

采用状态-特质焦虑量表、流调抑郁量表、注意控制量表和正负性信息注意量表,对481名在校大学生进行调查研究,考察了焦虑、抑郁对注意偏向的影响,并探讨了注意控制在其中的中介作用。研究发现：（1）正性注意偏向与注意控制呈正相关,与状态焦虑、特质焦虑和流调抑郁呈负相关;负性注意偏向与注意控制呈负相关,与状态焦虑、特质焦虑和流调抑郁呈正相关。（2）特质焦虑、注意集中、注意转移可显著预测正性注意偏向,状态焦虑、流调抑郁和注意集中则显著预测负性注意偏向。（3）注意转移和注意集中中介了状态焦虑、特质焦虑、流调抑郁和正、负性注意偏向间的关系。研究提示注意控制是一个重要的保护性因素,可缓解或消除焦虑和抑郁对注意偏向的负面影响。     

注意偏向训练对社交焦虑的干预：方法、效果与机制

社交焦虑障碍是最普遍且难于治疗的精神障碍之一。大量研究发现, 注意偏向训练可以有效缓解社交焦虑。研究者从自我报告、结构化评估、生理记录等方面考察发现, 接受了注意偏向训练的社交焦虑个体其注意偏向、生理唤醒和脑神经活动发生变化并且社交焦虑症状有所缓解。注意偏向训练对社交焦虑的干预机制可能是因为训练提升了个体对威胁性刺激的注意解除能力。今后的研究可以进一步明确注意偏向训练干预社交焦虑的效果与机制, 拓宽评估注意偏向训练效果的手段, 并探索其对社交焦虑干预的长期效果和对其它心理疾病的作用。     

手机成瘾大学生注意偏向的实验研究

该研究试图从注意偏向角度研究手机成瘾大学生的认知特点和机制,旨在揭示手机成瘾大学生与正常使用手机大学生在面对手机相关词语和中性刺激时的注意特点及其机制,以期为手机成瘾大学生的治疗和干预提供理论支持。该研究首先利用手机成瘾量表筛选出手机成瘾被试,然后采用点探测范式探求其存在这种注意偏向模式的内在机制。通过研究发现,手机成瘾水平对大学生手机相关词语注意偏向是有影响的,不同手机成瘾水平者的注意模式不同,手机成瘾者对手机相关信息存在注意偏向,正常使用手机者没有表现出显著的注意偏向。     

社交焦虑注意偏向的动态变化

注意偏向是社交焦虑障碍(Social Anxiety Disorder, SAD)个体症状维持的重要因素, 其中注意警觉、注意回避、注意脱离困难三种注意模式得到了研究者最广泛的研究与讨论。随着研究深入, 有研究者提出SAD个体的注意模式不是单一、静态模式, 更有可能在不同注意模式间切换, 表现为动态的过程。目前, 依据相关研究结果和理论假设, 证据均指向SAD个体的注意偏向具有随着焦虑水平提高和注意控制能力受损而动态变化的倾向, 从注意警觉过渡到注意回避与注意脱离困难均如此。此观点还需研究进一步证实, 并且基于研究结果提出更具有针对性的干预方式。     

青少年负性情绪信息注意偏向的情绪弹性和性别效应

探讨情绪弹性和性别变量对青少年加工负性情绪信息时注意偏向的影响,采用情绪stroop实验范式,以46名青少年为被试,以负性情绪图片为实验材料,考察不同情绪弹性和性别的青少年在负性情绪图片颜色识别时的反应时间差异。结果发现,情绪弹性对负性情绪图片颜色识别的主效应显著,统计效力非常明显;性别对负性情绪图片颜色识别的主效应显著,统计效力明显;情绪弹性与性别在颜色识别上的交互作用不显著。这说明青少年负性情绪信息加工过程中产生的注意偏向效应受情绪弹性和性别因素的影响。     

暴力犯罪者对负性情绪信息注意偏向的ERP研究

采用视觉搜索范式,探讨了暴力犯罪者对情绪刺激（愤怒面孔与高兴面孔）的注意偏向特点。行为数据显示,相比非暴力组,暴力组对愤怒面孔的反应要显著快于高兴面孔,初步验证了暴力犯罪者对负性情绪信息存在注意偏向。ERP数据进一步表明,当目标刺激为愤怒面孔时,暴力组N2pc的潜伏期要显著小于非暴力组,说明暴力犯罪者对愤怒面孔的觉察早于高兴面孔,对负性情绪刺激更为敏感。由于N2pc的波幅不存在显著差异,差异主要表现在反应时和潜伏期,说明暴力犯能够更快的觉察到负性情绪面孔,但并没有对其投入更多的注意资源,出现回避模式,表明暴力犯对负性情绪信息的加工是一种警觉—回避模式。     

大学生情绪复杂性对情绪信息注意偏向的影响

为考察大学生情绪复杂性对情绪信息注意偏向的影响,通过情绪体验范围和区分性量表(RDEES)筛选出高低情绪复杂性被试各30名,采用2(情绪复杂性:高、低)×3(效价:正性、中性和负性)×4(呈现条件:0/300/600/900ms)的三因素混合设计要求被试完成视觉搜索任务。结果显示:(1)高、低情绪复杂性组在情绪条件(正性、负性)下的正确率显著低于中性图片、反应时显著高于中性图片,均表现出对情绪图片的注意偏向;(2)高分组在正性图片0ms呈现的条件下的正确率显著高于低分组,在负性图片300ms和900ms呈现和正性图片900ms呈现条件下的反应时显著低于低分组。     

注意偏向训练对广泛性焦虑障碍负性情绪注意偏向的影响

采用改良的点探测任务,探讨了注意偏向训练能否改变GAD患者的负性情绪注意偏向并缓解其焦虑状态,及注意偏向训练的作用机制。结果发现,与控制组相比,训练组被试的负性注意偏向分数显著降低,具体表现为训练后训练组的负性注意解除能力显著高于控制组,两组被试的负性注意警觉在前后测均未有显著变化;注意偏向训练引起了GAD患者积极情绪的变化,缓解了状态焦虑。这证明了注意偏向训练对改变GAD患者负性情绪注意偏向及缓解其焦虑状态的有效性,并揭示这种改变主要是通过提升其对负性刺激的注意解除能力来实现的。     

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.     

Terror mismanagement: evidence that mortality salience exacerbates attentional bias in social anxiety

Death anxiety is a basic fear underlying a range of psychological conditions, and has been found to increase avoidance in social anxiety. Given that attentional bias is a core feature of social anxiety, the aim of the present study was to examine the impact of mortality salience (MS) on attentional bias in social anxiety. Participants were 36 socially anxious and 37 non-socially anxious individuals, randomly allocated to a MS or control condition. An eye-tracking procedure assessed initial bias towards, and late-stage avoidance of, socially threatening facial expressions. As predicted, socially anxious participants in the MS condition demonstrated significantly more initial bias to social threat than non-socially anxious participants in the MS condition and socially anxious participants in the control condition. However, this effect was not found for late-stage avoidance of social threat. These findings suggest that reminders of death may heighten initial vigilance towards social threat.     

Information processing bias against emotional facial expressions in social anxiety

The present study examined whether information processing bias against emotional facial expressions is present among individuals with social anxiety. College students with high (high social anxiety group; n  = 26) and low social anxiety (low social anxiety group; n  = 26) performed three different types of working memory tasks: (a) ordering positive and negative facial expressions according to the intensity of emotion; (b) ordering pictures of faces according to age; and (c) ordering geometric shapes according to size. The high social anxiety group performed significantly more poorly than the low social anxiety group on the facial expression task, but not on the other two tasks with the nonemotional stimuli. These results suggest that high social anxiety interferes with processing of emotionally charged facial expressions.     

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.     

状态焦虑对时距知觉的影响：认知评价和注意偏向有调节的中介作用

探讨状态焦虑对时距知觉的影响以及注意偏向与认知评价在其中的中介和调节作用。招募大学生60人, 随机分为高、低状态焦虑组, 用情绪诱导程序诱导高、低状态焦虑; 用点探测范式测量注意偏向; 用时间再现任务测量时距知觉; 用视觉模拟心境量表测量认知评价。结果发现：(1)状态焦虑会导致对2000 ms时距的高估; (2)注意偏向在状态焦虑对2000 ms时距知觉的影响中具有部分中介作用; (3)状态焦虑通过注意偏向影响时距知觉的中介过程受到认知评价的调节作用：只有当认知评价得分较高时, 即个体认为焦虑对心理健康有害程度较高时, 状态焦虑通过注意偏向影响2000 ms时距知觉。研究结果揭示了焦虑个体时距知觉的内部过程, 丰富了焦虑通过注意偏向影响时距知觉的解释视角, 为通过认知评价和注意偏向的调整改善焦虑个体时距偏差现象提供了重要参考。     

Understanding associations between negatively biased attention and depression and social anxiety: positively biased attention is key

ABSTRACT

Background and objectives: Although research supports the premise that depressed and socially anxious individuals direct attention preferentially toward negative emotional cues, little is known about how attention to positive emotional cues might modulate this negative attention bias risk process. The purpose of this study was to determine if associations between attention biases to sad and angry faces and depression and social anxiety symptoms, respectively, would be strongest in individuals who also show biased attention away from happy faces.

Methods: Young adults (N?=?151; 79% female; M?=?19.63 years) completed self-report measures of depression and social anxiety symptoms and a dot probe task to assess attention biases to happy, sad, and angry facial expressions.

Results: Attention bias to happy faces moderated associations between attention to negatively valenced faces and psychopathology symptoms. However, attention bias toward sad faces was positively and significantly related to depression symptoms only for individuals who also selectively attended toward happy faces. Similarly, attention bias toward angry faces was positively and significantly associated with social anxiety symptoms only for individuals who also selectively attended toward happy faces.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that individuals with high levels of depression or social anxiety symptoms attend preferentially to emotional stimuli across valences.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Individual differences in the impact of attentional bias training on cardiovascular responses to stress in women

Abstract

Experimental studies show that training people to attend to negative stimuli makes them more likely to respond with greater anxiety to stress. The present study investigated this effect in students using measures of cardiovascular responses to stress and examined whether individual differences influence the impact of attention training on stress responses. Using a standard dot probe task, 30 participants underwent negative attentional bias training and 34 participants underwent anti-negative training before completing a stressful speech task. Results indicated that, overall, participants exhibited acclimatization to the procedures (indicated by a dip in blood pressure post-training) and normal stress responding (indicated by elevated blood pressure in response to stress; p<.001). However, consideration of participants’ scores for neuroticism/emotional-stability revealed important differences in how the intervention impacted on cardiovascular profiles (p=.008). For participants with high neuroticism scores, the negative attentional bias intervention elicited more exaggerated stress responding than the anti-negative intervention. For those with low neuroticism scores (i.e., emotionally stable participants), the anti-negative intervention was associated with elevated post-intervention blood pressure and higher blood pressure reactivity to stress. These findings provide evidence of the impact of attentional bias manipulation on physiological stress reactivity and suggest the effect is highly contingent on individual temperaments.