Current mood influences biases for positive and negative stimuli

Abstract

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.