An Eye Tracking Study of the Time Course of Attention to Positive and Negative Images in Dysphoric and Non-dysphoric Individuals

Abstract

Researchers studying selective attention in depressed and dysphoric individuals have documented biases in the allocation of attention to emotional information (Gotlib & Joormann, 2010; Yiend, 2010). Recent studies using eye gaze tracking have shown that when images are presented for extended durations (5–30 seconds), depressed and dysphoric individuals attend to depression-related images more than never depressed individuals and attend to positive images less (Armstrong & Olatunji, 2012). The present study used eye gaze tracking and time course analyses to look for differences between dysphoric and non-dysphoric individuals in their attention to emotional images over time. Participants viewed sets of four images (a depression-related image, a threat-related image, a positive image, and a neutral image) while their eye fixations were tracked and recorded throughout a 10-second presentation. The time course analyses, which divided each 10-second presentation into 2-second intervals, revealed that group differences in attention to positive and depression-related images emerged only after 4 seconds had elapsed and then persisted for the remainder of the 10-second presentation. Dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants were further distinguished by the temporal profiles of their attention to positive and depression-related images. The implications for researchers' understanding of attention to emotion in dysphoria and depression are discussed.