社交焦虑障碍中的注意偏差三成分研究述评

社交焦虑障碍表现为对一种或多种社交情境存在显著并持续的害怕,并表现出对社交刺激具有注意偏差,即注意增强、注意固着和注意回避,这三个成分交互作用促使社交焦虑持续发展.目前主要采用视觉搜索任务、点探测任务、空间线索任务,并结合眼动技术对此进行研究,但三成分之间的关系仍然存在疑惑,三者是否具有时间进程,如何衔接转换,仍需进一步检验.     

Cultural differences in attention: Eye movement evidence from a comparative visual search task

Individual differences in visual attention have been linked to thinking style: analytic thinking (common in individualistic cultures) is thought to promote attention to detail and focus on the most important part of a scene, whereas holistic thinking (common in collectivist cultures) promotes attention to the global structure of a scene and the relationship between its parts. However, this theory is primarily based on relatively simple judgement tasks. We compared groups from Great Britain (an individualist culture) and Saudi Arabia (a collectivist culture) on a more complex comparative visual search task, using simple natural scenes. A higher overall number of fixations for Saudi participants, along with longer search times, indicated less efficient search behaviour than British participants. Furthermore, intra-group comparisons of scan-path for Saudi participants revealed less similarity than within the British group. Together, these findings suggest that there is a positive relationship between an analytic cognitive style and controlled attention.     

Subliminal primes for global or local processing influence judgments of vehicular traffic

Previous studies on semantic priming show that briefly presented words can unconsciously manipulate subjects’ mental states, behaviors, and attitudes. Here we evaluated whether semantic primes can also manipulate the breadth of subjects’ visual attention. We primed participants with briefly presented words that indicate either broadness or narrowness; each prime was followed by either a large or a small picture of a street intersection with vehicles, and participants had to indicate in which order the vehicles were legally allowed to pass the intersection. Participants responded to large pictures faster when primed with words denoting broadness, and to small pictures faster when primed with words denoting narrowness. From this we concluded that semantic priming can be effectively applied to manipulate the breadth of attention, which could be exploited in real-world scenarios.     

Fluctuations in pre-trial attentional state and their influence on goal neglect

Fluctuations in attentional state and their relation to goal neglect were examined in the current study. Participants performed a variant of the Stroop task in which attentional state ratings were given prior to each trial. It was found that pre-trial attentional state ratings predicted subsequent trial performance, such that when participants rated their current attentional state as highly focused on the current task, performance tended to be high compared to when participants reported their current attentional state as being unfocused on the current task. This effect was larger for incongruent than congruent trials leading to differences in the magnitude of the Stroop effect as a function of pre-trial attentional state. Furthermore, variability in attentional state was correlated with overall levels of performance, and when attentional state was covaried out, the Stroop effect was greatly reduced. These results suggest a link between fluctuations in pre-trial attentional state and goal neglect.     

Parietal theta burst TMS: Functional fractionation observed during bistable perception not evident in attention tasks

When visual input is ambiguous, perception spontaneously alternates between interpretations: bistable perception. Studies have identified two distinct sites near the right intraparietal sulcus where inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) affects the frequency of occurrence of these alternations, but strikingly with opposite directions of effect for the two sites. Lesion and TMS studies on spatial and sustained attention have also indicated a parcellation of right parietal cortex, into areas serving distinct attentional functions. We used the exact TMS procedure previously employed to affect bistable perception, yet measured its effect on spatial and sustained attention tasks. Although there was a trend for TMS to affect performance, trends were consistently similar for both parietal sites, with no indication of opposite effects. We interpret this as signifying that the previously observed parietal fractionation of function regarding the perception of ambiguous stimuli is not due to TMS-induced modification of spatial or sustained attention.     

Implicit learning, thought-focused attention and obsessive-compulsive disorder: a replication and extension

Although significant empirical support exists for both cognitive and neurobiological models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), there have been few efforts to integrate findings. In this investigation, we attempted to link models by examining relationships between performance on information processing tasks posited to be markers of OCD-related neuropathology and a self-report measure of excessive thought-focused attention (cognitive self-consciousness; CSC). Congruent with predictions and prior research, OCD patients' performance was impaired in comparison to an anxious control group on the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) Task, a measure of implicit procedural learning. Following completion of the SRT, participants' awareness of the embedded stimulus pattern was assessed. As predicted, participants with OCD demonstrated superior performance on this task. Scoring on a measure of CSC correlated with performance on both tasks, although the amount of variance accounted for was modest. Evaluation of OCD symptom subgroups revealed greater procedural learning impairment in a hoarding subgroup. Implications for theory and treatment are discussed.     

To point a finger: attentional and motor consequences of observing pointing movements

Recent studies showed that action observation activates neural circuits used in performing the same action and facilitates execution of a similar motor program. This system for direct mapping of observed actions onto observer’s own motor representation is considered critical for human imitation capabilities. The present study shows that observing a pointing action activates a representation of that action in anatomical space, irrespectively of whether the action is shown in allocentric or egocentric perspective. This finding is at odds with the studies on imitation which showed that humans tend to imitate in a spatially compatible (specular) way, as if looking in a mirror. Our results suggest that shared representations for actions are organized in the same spatial coordinates; however, a transformation of this representation might be required for imitation tasks in order to accommodate the goals of imitative action.     

The corrective effects of warning on false memories in the DRM paradigm are limited to full attention conditions

Effects of attention control and forewarning on the activation and monitoring of experimentally induced false memories in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm were investigated in a young adult sample (N=77). We found that reducing the degree of attention during encoding led to a decrease in veridical recall and an increase in non-presented critical lure intrusions. This effect could not be counteracted by a forewarning instruction. However, these findings did not emerge in a (retrieval supportive) recognition task. It seems that divided attention increases false recall when attention control and forewarning have to compete for limited cognitive resources in a generative free recall as opposed to a retrieval supportive recognition task. Forewarning instructions do not always protect young adults against experimentally induced false memories.