Attentional bias for positive emotional stimuli: A meta-analytic investigation.

Individuals with high anxiety preferentially focus attention on emotional information. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays an important role in modulating both anxiety and attentional processes. Despite many studies having evaluated attentional bias in anxious people, few of them have investigated the change blindness phenomenon associated with the attentional response toward salient stimuli, considering the role of the ANS. This study aimed to examine the role of heart rate variability (HRV) in trait anxiety and top-down and bottom-up attentional processes toward emotional stimuli. Seventy-five healthy university students were divided into high (N = 39) and low (N = 36) trait anxiety groups and completed a change detection flicker task with neutral, positive, and negative stimuli. The results evidenced a different attentional pattern between people with high and low anxiety considering both the two attentional processes and the valence of the stimuli. Specifically, individuals with high anxiety showed a bias in elaborating emotional stimuli related to their salience (i.e., negative stimuli were faster elaborated than neutral and positive stimuli when top-down attentional mechanisms were involved, while slower performances were highlighted considering bottom-up attentional mechanisms in response to emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli). Moreover, an association between HRV, trait anxiety levels, and change blindness phenomenon was confirmed. These results underline the role of HRV as a possible predictor of the alteration of attentional mechanism in anxiety.

Dopaminergic neurotransmission in the ventral and dorsal striatum interact with central processing of rewarding and reward-indicating stimuli, and may affect frontocortical-striatal-thalamic circuits regulating goal-directed behaviour. Thirteen healthy male volunteers were investigated with multimodal imaging, using the radioligand 6-[(18)F]fluoro-l-DOPA (FDOPA) for positron emission tomography (PET) measurements of dopamine synthesis capacity, and also functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a cognitive activation paradigm. We calculated the correlation between FDOPA net blood-brain influx (; ml/g/min) in the ventral and associative dorsal striatum and BOLD signal changes elicited by standardized affectively positive, negative and neutral visual stimuli. The magnitude of in the ventral striatum was positively correlated with BOLD signal increases in the left anterior cingulate cortex and right insular operculum elicited by positive vs. neutral stimuli, but not negative vs. neutral stimuli. In the dorsal striatum, the magnitude of was positively correlated with processing of positive and negative stimuli in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest that dopamine synthesis capacity in the ventral striatum correlates with the attentional processing of rewarding positive stimuli in the anterior cingulate cortex of healthy subjects. Dopaminergic neurotransmission in the associative dorsal striatum has been associated previously with habit learning. The observed correlation between dopamine synthesis capacity in the dorsal striatum and BOLD signal changes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex suggests dopaminergic modulation of processing of emotional stimuli in brain areas associated with motor planning and executive behaviour control.

Objective: Depression-related differences in processing emotional information have been observed in prior research, though the influence of age upon affective reactivity of negative, neutral, and positive stimuli may partially explain these differences. We examined the extent to which age influences affective reactivity to positive, neutral, and negative stimuli in depressed and healthy participants. Methods: The study enrolled 129 right-handed females between 16 to 63 years old who met either DSM-IV criteria for current, medication-free Major Depressive Disorder (n=59) or no current or lifetime diagnoses (n=70). All participants completed a structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders, a clinical interview to determine depression severity, and an affective reactivity task. Results: There were no significant main effects of depression status or interaction effects between depression status and age on ratings of positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. Additionally, there was no significant main effect of age on ratings of positive stimuli. However, there were main effects of age on ratings of negative and neutral stimuli suggesting that depressed and healthy participants differed in their evaluation of negative and neutral information as a function of age. Specifically, participants rated neutral information as more positive over the lifespan, and negative information as less negative across the lifespan. Conclusion: Reactions to neutral information appear to become more positive with older age and reactions to negative information appear to decline with age unrelated to depression status.

ABSTRACTExtensive evidence has been obtained that supports an association between an attentional bias (AB) toward negative stimuli and vulnerability to mental and behavioral problems; however, diabetes self-management (DSM) behavior in type 2 diabetic patients has not specifically been assessed. The current study investigated whether type 2 diabetic Chinese patients who had different levels of self-management behaviors showed different patterns of AB toward either positive or negative stimuli. A sample of 195 patients completed questionnaires measuring DSM and a modified dot-probe task measuring AB. Patients with low levels of DSM had an avoidance bias for positive stimuli, the regression showed that negative orienting index significantly predicted lower DSM; patients with medium levels of DSM had difficulty in disengaging attention from negative stimuli, the regression showed that negative disengaging index significantly predicted lower DSM; while patients with high levels of DSM had an avoidance bias for negative stimuli and difficulty in disengaging from positive stimuli. An implication of this finding is that the understanding of information processing bias affects DSM and therefore suggests a novel target for prevention and treatment interventions.

ABSTRACTExtensive evidence has been obtained that supports an association between an attentional bias (AB) toward negative stimuli and vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology, little is known regarding the characteristics of individual AB in different posttraumatic growth (PTG) levels. The current study used a modified dot-probe task to investigate if individual differences in AB towards either positive or negative emotional stimuli, are related to self-reported PTG. A sample of 202 patients completed the experiment. Patients with low levels of PTG did not exhibit AB toward negative or positive stimuli, patients with medium levels of PTG had difficulty disengaging attention from negative stimuli, patients with high levels of PTG had difficulty disengaging attention from positive stimuli. And the AB towards positive stimuli was only predictive for PTG. An implication of this finding is that there are different characteristics of implicit cognitive processing in patients with different levels of PTG, suggesting the necessity of psychological intervention on the accidentally injured patients.

Previous studies have shown that the perception of neutral emotion stimuli can be negative rather than absolutely neutral. In the current study, we examined the negative bias of both neutral faces and scenes, cross-culturally between East Asians (e.g. Koreans) and Caucasian Americans. In all experiments, participants performed a Go/No-go task, by either executing or withholding a response toward neutral stimuli presented in the context of positive or negative stimuli. Differentiating neutral stimuli from negative stimuli was less accurate, measured in d’, than doing so from positive stimuli. This negative bias was evident with both faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and scenes (Experiment 3). In all experiments, while both ethnic groups demonstrated significant negative biases, there was a subtle modulation of the bias by cultural background. For example, for Korean faces and IAPS scenes, Koreans showed a mitigated negative bias and Caucasian Americans demonstrated a greater negative bias. However, for Caucasian faces, bias was comparable between the two groups. With the possibility of cultural modulation, the prevalent negative bias of neutral emotion questions the validity of the neutrality assumption of the neutral emotion. The study discusses the necessity of methodological and theoretical reconsiderations for the utilisation of neutral emotion stimuli.

Relationships between temperament dimensions in personality and unconscious emotional responses

To systematically evaluate the attentional bias in patients with depression toward emotional stimuli and to explore eye movement indicators and potential regulatory variables that can distinguish such patients from healthy individuals. Case-control studies regarding eye-tracking in major depressive disorder published in PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, The Cochrane Library, EBSCOhost, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and VIP databases from database initiation until March 12, 2022 were included in the present meta-analysis. Two researchers independently screened the literature and performed data extraction. The quality of the literature was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scale.RevMan 5.4 software was used for Meta-analysis. Overall, 14 studies were included, including 1,167 participants (N depression = 474; N healthy = 693). We found that (1) fixation duration was significantly lower for positive emotional stimuli in the depression group than that in the healthy group; however, for negative stimuli, the fixation duration was significantly more in the depression group than in the healthy group. No significant difference was observed in terms of neutral emotional stimuli between groups. (2) Patients with depression exhibited a significantly lower fixation count for positive emotional stimuli than healthy individuals, whereas the fixation count for negative emotional stimuli was significantly higher in the depression group than in the healthy group. No significant difference was found for neutral emotional stimuli between groups. (3) No significant difference was detected in terms of the first fixation duration of the positive, negative, and neutral emotional stimuli between groups. (4) subgroup analysis indicated that age effected fixation duration for positive emotional stimuli. In addition, age and the type of negative emotional picture (sad, dysphoric, threat, anger) effected fixation duration for negative emotional stimuli. Our research supports that patients with depression exhibit a negative attention bias toward emotional stimuli, and the fixation duration and fixation counts may be used as auxiliary objective indicators for depression screening.

Neuronal underpinnings of the attentional bias toward threat in the anxiety spectrum: Meta-analytical data on P3 and LPP event-related potentials

Experiential pleasure deficits in the prodrome: A study of emotional experiences in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis and recent-onset schizophrenia

Problem drinking may reflect a maladaptive means of coping with negative emotions or enhancing positive emotions. Disorders with affective symptoms are often characterized by attentional biases for symptom-congruent emotionally valenced stimuli. Regarding addictions, coping motivated (CM) problem gamblers exhibit an attentional bias for negative stimuli, whereas enhancement motivated (EM) problem gamblers exhibit this bias for positive stimuli (Hudson, Jacques, & Stewart, 2013). We predicted that problem drinkers would show similar motive-congruent attentional biases. Problem and non-problem drinkers (n = 48 per group) completed an emotional orienting task measuring attentional biases to positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. As predicted, EM problem drinkers showed an attentional bias for positive information (i.e., reduced accuracy for positively cued trials). However, CM problem drinkers displayed a general distractibility (i.e., reduced accuracy, regardless of cue valence). The results add further support for Cooper et al.'s (1992) motivational model of alcohol use, and indicate potential motivation-matched intervention targets. (PsycINFO Database Record

Investigating the neural effects of emotional stimuli and pharmacological treatments on the emotional regulation network in fibromyalgia: A graph theory approach.

Research suggests there are biases that affect cognitive processes such as attention and memory in affective disorders (Everaert et al., 2020; Grant et al., 2020) and traits associated with these disorders, such as perfectionism (Besser et al., 2008; Howell et al., 2016; Tonta et al., 2019). However, very limited research exists on the relationship between attention and memory bias in perfectionism. The aim of the current study was to examine to what extent cognitive biases exist and how they are related in perfectionism. I combined a dot probe task to measure attention bias with a recognition task to measure memory bias using perfectionism-relevant, negative, positive, and neutral stimuli. The results suggest attention bias does not mediate the relationship between perfectionism and memory bias, regardless of word type. However, results showed perfectionism was directly related to memory bias for perfectionism-relevant words only. Perfectionism was positively correlated with hits for perfectionism-relevant and negative words, not positive or neutral words. Suggesting perfectionism does have a role in memory bias. Limitations, future directions, and implications are discussed. To my knowledge this was the first study that examined both attention bias and memory bias in perfectionism. Understanding the relationship between cognitive biases in perfectionism can help improve mental health as perfectionism has become more prevalent and increasingly linked to mental health issues.

Altered attentional biases for emotional information are observed in populations with mood-related disorders. However, studies of emotion-related attentional biases in general populations have inconsistent findings. Inconsistencies may partially result from the use of average reaction time (RT) as a measure of attentional bias, which does not account for the RT distribution’s skewness or individual differences that influence RT but are unrelated to attention. 118 participants completed a word-based emotional flanker task and questionnaires on current mood, emotion regulation, and attention control. Participants responded more slowly, but more accurately, to negative than positive target trials. Applying the diffusion model to the data revealed an attentional bias (measured by drift rates) for negative over positive stimuli and an initial bias (measured by starting point) to positive responses overall. Furthermore, increased negative mood was associated with decreased attention control across all trials, though the relationship became anecdotal when participants with clinical levels of depressive symptoms were excluded. This study helps elucidate how current mood affects attentional biases towards emotional information in a general population and may contribute to research on altered attentional biases in mood-related psychiatric disorders.

Humans tend to assign valence to objects, people, and events in the environment, but there are individual differences in the evaluation of the affective nature of these environmental stimuli. This exploratory study investigated how individual differences in anxiety and avoidance in close relationships are associated with the emotional appraisal of valenced and neutral stimuli. Participants evaluated negative, neutral, and positive stimuli for emotional valence in an image classification task. There was a positivity offset across all participants, in that neutral stimuli were evaluated as more positive than negative. Individuals higher on the Experiences in Close Relationships-Anxiety subscale showed a negativity bias in reaction times and ratings: they had faster response times to negative than to positive stimuli and had a greater tendency to evaluate positive stimuli as "negative." Individuals higher on the Experiences in Close Relationships-Avoidance subscale gave more positive ratings of negative stimuli and more negative ratings of positive stimuli, which may suggest a general blunted response to emotional stimuli. Findings are discussed in the context of the literature on individual differences and emotional appraisal of stimuli.