Evidence Of Attentional Bias Research Articles

Investigating attention toward pain-related cues in an Arabic-speaking population with and without chronic pain

There is some evidence for attentional biases in individuals with chronic pain (CP). Cultural and linguistic differences might affect the manifestation of these processes across populations. However, such attentional biases have not been explored in the Arabic-speaking population. The current study investigated these attentional biases and possible associations with resilience. Two matched groups of Arabic-speaking participants with (58) and without (58) CP were recruited from Jordan and the United Kingdom. They completed emotionally modified versions of the Posner cueing and Stroop tasks, alongside questionnaires. Significant group differences were found for the Posner task, with the CP group exhibiting disengagement revealed by the inhibition of return (IOR) effect for sensory pain-related cues compared to delayed disengagement for the other cue types. The control group showed IOR across cue types. No group differences were found on the Stroop task. The CP group had lower resilience scores than healthy controls, and resilience moderated performance on the Posner task. The study provides preliminary evidence about the attentional processes in the Arabic population; the speed of disengagement is affected in the CP group with early disengagement for sensory pain-related information compared to affect pain and neutral stimuli. Furthermore, resilience levels in the CP and control group moderated the performance on the Posner task, suggesting that it influences attentional allocation. This study can help in understanding how the phenomenon of attention bias intertwines with the cultural and linguistic factors. Future research should further explore attentional dynamics across different time points in this population and the modulatory effect of resilience.

Attentional biases to faces with direct versus averted gaze in children without and with autism spectrum disorder: A dot-probe paradigm

Previous research utilized a variety of paradigms to demonstrate attentional biases to faces with direct versus averted gaze in typical development (TD) and no such bias in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, little is known about whether the biases can be observed during automatic processing stages in TD and whether the lack of such bias in ASD is due to passive neglect or active avoidance of direct gaze. Therefore, we employed a dot-probe paradigm and manipulated stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) to measure response times to probes replacing faces with direct gaze compared to faces with averted gaze in children without and with ASD. There was no evidence of attentional bias in either group when stimuli were presented during the automatic processing stage (200 ms SOA). However, during the controlled processing stage (1000 ms SOA), an attentional bias to faces with direct versus averted gaze was found in control children but not in those with ASD. The results indicate that the facilitation of direct gaze on facial attention occurs during controlled rather than automatic processing stages in TD individuals. In contrast, children with ASD respond indiscriminately to direct and averted gaze during both stages of cognitive processing, supporting the gaze indifference hypothesis. For TD children but not for children with ASD, direct gaze is an adaptively informative or socially salient signal.

Positive human interaction improves welfare in commercial breeding dogs: Evidence from attention bias and human sociability tests

Intensive breeding practices found in large scale Commercial Breeding Establishments (CBEs) raise significant concerns about breeding dam welfare. Large-scale CBE dams spend most of their reproductive lives confined to kennels, with limited access to enriching experiences including positive human interaction. Long-term confinement can have detrimental effects on dog welfare, inducing negative affective states like anxiety and depressive-like behaviour, and leading to the development of behavioural problems such as fearfulness towards unfamiliar people. Evidence in humans and other animals shows that negative affective states increase the subject’s attention towards a threatening stimulus. We tested the impact of positive human interaction on the welfare of breeding dams from a licensed UK CBE. After receiving four weeks of either baseline levels (control, N = 16) or additional positive human interaction (enriched, N = 15), an attention bias test (ABT) was conducted to assess dogs’ affective states. Afterwards, dams’ human sociability level was evaluated using a stranger approach test. Pre- and post-intervention hair cortisol samples were collected to determine the effect of enrichment on chronic stress. In the ABT, we predicted that, compared to enriched dams, control dams would look more frequently and for longer towards the position of a negative threatening stimulus (opening and closing umbrella) and would spend less time interacting with a positive rewarding stimulus (food bowl). In the stranger approach test, we expected enriched dams would score higher, suggesting more affiliative behaviour towards unfamiliar people. Results showed that control dams looked more frequently (p = 0.005) but not for longer (p = 0.148) towards the negative stimulus in the ABT. Moreover, enriched dams spent more time sniffing (p = 0.032) and eating (p = 0.005) from the food bowl. Additionally, enriched dams scored higher on average in the stranger approach test than dams in the control group (p = 0.026). No significant difference was observed in the percentage change of hair cortisol concentration between treatment groups (p = 0.135). To our knowledge, this is the first evidence for attention bias indicating affective state in dogs. This study demonstrates that a positive human interaction used as a form of enrichment can improve welfare and sociability towards strangers in commercial breeding female dogs. However, longer-term enrichment protocols may be needed to influence hair cortisol levels. Dams in large-scale breeding facilities would benefit from additional positive human interaction, particularly near the end of their reproductive life when they are rehomed as pets.

Effects of Mindset and Dietary Restraint on Attention Bias for Food and Food Intake.

Evidence for attention bias (AB) for food in restrained eaters is inconsistent. A person’s mindset related to food – that is, whether someone focuses on the hedonic or health aspects of food – might be an overlooked influence on AB for food, possibly explaining the inconsistency in the literature. Fluctuations between a hedonic versus a health mindset might be strongest in restrained eaters, who have a conflicted relationship with food. We investigated the effect of mindset and dietary restraint on AB for food and food intake. We hypothesized that AB for food, as reflected in eye-movement measures and manual response latencies, as well as food intake, would be larger in the hedonic than in the health mindset, most strongly in participants scoring high on dietary restraint. Moreover, we expected a positive correlation between AB for food and food intake, especially in the hedonic mindset. We used short video clips to induce either a health or hedonic mindset. Subsequently, participants (n = 122) performed a modified additional singleton task with pictures of high-caloric food vs neutral pictures as irrelevant distractors. Next, food intake was measured in a bogus taste test. We found no evidence for an AB towards food, nor any moderation by either mindset or dietary restraint. Food intake tended to be higher for participants scoring higher on dietary restraint, but effects were not moderated by mindset. Response-latency based AB for food tended to correlate positively with food intake in the hedonic mindset. Taken together, our hypotheses regarding AB for food were largely not confirmed. We provide suggestions on how to improve upon the specific implementations of our AB task and mindset manipulation, to strengthen future research in this field.

Attentional interference, but no attentional bias, by tonic itch and pain stimulation

Introduction: Attentional processes are involved in the experience of itch and pain. They interrupt task performance (ie, attentional interference) or bias allocation of attention toward the somatosensory stimulation, that is, attentional bias (AB). Research on AB toward pain is mostly focused on stimuli with short durations; hampering generalization to tonic pain sensations. Evidence for AB toward itch is lacking so far. This study investigated attentional interference by—and AB toward—experimentally induced tonic itch and pain. Methods: Fifty healthy volunteers performed a somatosensory attention task (SAT), that measured attentional interference and AB during tonic (35 s duration) pain, itch and vibrotactile stimuli. In addition, a dot-probe task measured AB toward visual representations of itch and pain, a Flanker task was used to assess attentional inhibition, and self-reported characteristics were measured. Results: Attentional interference during itch and pain stimuli compared with vibrotactile stimuli was found during the SAT. Exploration of shorter time segments within one tonic stimulus showed slowed responses for all three stimulus types during the first 5 seconds of stimulation. However, no prolonged interference in the following time segments was found. There was no AB toward somatosensory and visual stimuli. Furthermore, there was no association between any of the attentional measures and self-reported characteristics. Discussion: These findings suggest that the beginning of any somatosensory stimulus is interfering with cognitive performance, but the results for prolonged interference by itch and pain are equivocal. There was no indication for biased attention allocation. Whether this pattern is different in patients remains to be investigated in the future.

Evidence of attentional bias toward body stimuli in men.

Over the past 30 years, attentional bias for body shape and weight content has been implicated in the precipitation and maintenance of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. Although the existence of this bias toward body stimuli is well-established in female populations, it is comparatively understudied in men. This review aimed to examine the nature of this visual attentional bias toward male bodies in male samples across a range of different attentional paradigms, including eye-tracking, dot-probe, and the visual search task. Results were heterogenous, finding some evidence that men with higher body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptoms demonstrated an attentional bias toward desirable bodies of other men, and undesirable features of their own bodies. These results suggest that schematic cognitive models of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders body may also be applicable to men, however more research is needed.

Attention Bias and Recognition of Sexual Images.

Attention to sexual stimuli is necessary for the development of sexual response, yet while there is some evidence of attention bias in favor of sexual stimuli, the direction and magnitude of the effect remain unknown. A high-powered sample of 113 participants was tested using the dot-probe task (DPT) and picture recognition task (PRT) to measure visuospatial attention to erotic images. Participants showed no attention bias in the DPT (rB = 0.201, p = 0.064) but were significantly better at recognizing erotic rather than neutral or training pictures (d = 1.445 and 1.461, respectively, both p < 0.001). This indicates that spatial attention bias to sexual pictures is small, negligible, possibly even non-existent, or else the DPT is not a reliable tool to assess it. Results of the PRT, on the other hand, show that sexual stimuli are prioritized in memory and this should be explored in future research.

Cognitive impairment in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS): A systematic review

BackgroundIrritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a common functional gastrointestinal disorder which is characterized by altered bowel habits. A growing number of studies investigate the association between IBS and cognitive impairments. Current studies report conflicting results regarding cognitive impairment in IBS patients. We therefore conducted the first systematic review to examine the association between IBS and cognitive impairment and identify the types of cognitive domain involved. Study designEight databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, ScienceDirect, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM)) were searched from the inception date up till 15 February 2018. Observational studies published in English or Chinese were independently appraised, and data was extracted, by two reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklist for Analytical Cross-Sectional Studies. The findings were synthesized using a narrative approach. ResultsTwelve studies met the inclusion criteria. Our findings suggested that IBS patients exhibited attentional bias towards GI sensation words and emotionally negative words. There was insufficient evidence of evidences to show that IBS patients had cognitive deficits in memory, intelligence, executive functions and general cognitive functions. A number of limitations were identified, including small sample, limited cognitive domain inclusion, lack of study details, and management of confounding variables. ConclusionThere is evidence of attentional bias in individuals with IBS; the evidence on cognitive impairment was either inconclusive or insufficient in other cognitive domains. Further studies are needed to confirm prevalence rates and examine potential mechanisms.

No evidence of attentional bias toward angry faces in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Objective:Although attentional bias (AB) toward angry faces is well established in patients with anxiety disorders, it is still poorly studied in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We investigated whether OCD patients present AB toward angry faces, whether AB is related to symptom severity and whether AB scores are associated with specific OCD symptom dimensions.Method:Forty-eight OCD patients were assessed in clinical evaluations, intelligence testing and a dot-probe AB paradigm that used neutral and angry faces as stimuli. Analyses were performed with a one-sample t-test, Pearson correlations and linear regression.Results:No evidence of AB was observed in OCD patients, nor was there any association between AB and symptom severity or dimension. Psychiatric comorbidity did not affect our results.Conclusion:In accordance with previous studies, we were unable to detect AB in OCD patients. To investigate whether OCD patients have different brain activation patterns from anxiety disorder patients, future studies using a transdiagnostic approach should evaluate AB in OCD and anxiety disorder patients as they perform AB tasks under functional neuroimaging protocols.

Eye-movement behaviours when viewing real-world pain-related images.

Pain-related cues are evolutionarily primed to capture attention, although evidence of attentional biases towards pain-related information is mixed in healthy individuals. The present study explores whether healthy individuals show significantly different eye-movement behaviours when viewing real-world pain-related scenes compared to neutral scenes. The effect of manipulating via written information the threat value of the pain-related scenes on eye-movement behaviours was also assessed. Participants were randomized to threatening (n=28) and non-threatening (n=27) information conditions. All completed a free-viewing task with real-world pain-related and neutral images while their eye movements were recorded. Participants made significantly fewer fixations of significantly longer duration when viewing pain-related images compared to neutral images. No significant differences were found between threatening and non-threatening information groups in their pattern of eye movements. This study shows that healthy individuals demonstrate attentional biases to pain-related real-world complex images compared to neutral images. Future research is needed to establish the implications of these biases, particularly in the context of acute pain, on the onset and/or subsequent maintenance of chronic pain conditions. Healthy individuals show different eye-movement behaviours when viewing pain-related scenes than neutral scenes, supporting evolutionary accounts of pain. Implications for the onset and/or maintenance of chronic pain need to be explored.

Eye-tracking research in eating disorders: A systematic review.

Those with eating disorders (EDs) show attentional biases to disorder-relevant stimuli, such as food and body shape information. However, attentional bias research in EDs largely relies on reaction time based measures, which are limited in their ability to assess different components and the time course of attention. Eye-tracking paradigms have therefore been utilized to provide greater ecological validity, and directly capture the detailed sequence of processes in perception and attention. While numerous studies have examined eye movements in the mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders, there has been a lack of studies in EDs. The purpose of this qualitative review is to provide a summary of eye-tracking studies in clinical ED populations. The review was conducted using the PRISMA guidelines. Electronic databases were systematically searched to identify studies examining gaze parameters in ED compared to healthy controls (HCs). Thirty-one studies met inclusion criteria. Across ED diagnoses, there was evidence of attentional biases towards food and body stimuli. In addition, differential patterns of attention to social information, and differences in smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements were found in anorexia nervosa (AN). Findings are discussed in relation to research in other psychiatric disorders, and recommendations for future studies using eye-tracking in EDs are given. The findings add to the wider literature on attentional biases in EDs, and provide potential avenues for treatment. IJED-18-0331.R1. Investigación de seguimiento ocular en trastornos de la conducta alimentaria: una revisión sistemática.

Contamination-fear in subclinical obsessive-compulsive disorder: A further proof for no preferential processing of disorder-related stimuli

How do individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) process and respond to images of rotten food or dirty toilets? In contrast to other fear-related disorders, evidence for attentional biases and preferential processing of disorder-related stimuli in samples of OCD is mixed. To address methodological problems of previous studies and to increase validity, we used two independent samples of participants with contamination fear and two sets of standardized stimuli in an established experimental paradigm. In two experiments, we compared evaluation and visual processing of contamination-fear related (CFr) stimulus material in individuals with high (HCF) and low (LCF) contamination fear. In experiment 1, we selected CFr stimuli from a database with disgust-related images (DIRTI). Even though the HCF group rated CFr images as being more unpleasant, arousing, and disgusting, we found no indicators of preferential processing (larger priming effects or faster responses). In experiment 2, we selected CFr stimuli from a database with images specifically chosen to evoke symptom-related anxiety in OCD patients (BOCD-PS). Again, negative evaluations of stimuli did not transfer into enhanced information processing. We conclude that early information processing of CFr stimuli is fundamentally different to that of fear-related stimuli in anxiety disorders; probably because of the triggered disgust response.

Fleeting reliability in the dot-probe task.

In a dot-probe task, two cues-one emotional and one neutral-are followed by a probe in one of their locations. Faster responses to probes co-located with the emotional stimulus are taken as evidence of attentional bias. Several studies indicate that such attentional bias measures have poor reliability, even though ERP studies show that people reliably attend to the emotional stimulus. This inconsistency might arise because the emotional stimulus captures attention briefly (as indicated by ERP), but cues appear for long enough that attention can be redistributed before the probe onset, causing RT measures of bias to vary across trials. We tested this hypothesis by manipulating SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony between onset of the cues and onset of the probe) in a dot-probe task using angry and neutral faces. Across three experiments, the internal reliability of behavioural biases was significantly greater than zero when probes followed faces by 100ms, but not when the SOA was 300, 500, or 900ms. Thus, the initial capture of attention shows some level of consistency, but this diminishes quickly. Even at the shortest SOA internal reliability estimates were poor, and not sufficient to justify the use of the task as an index of individual differences in attentional bias.

Eye Movement Evidence of Attentional Bias for Substance-Related Cues in Heroin Dependents on Methadone Maintenance Therapy

ABSTRACTBackground: Attentional biases toward substance-related stimuli might play a contributing role in addictive behaviors. Objectives: This study investigated the selective attention to substance-related stimuli in heroin dependents receiving methadone maintenance therapy. Methods: Thirty outpatients receiving methadone maintenance treatment for heroin dependence and 38 healthy controls completed a visual probe task with concurrent eye movement monitoring. Results: The results showed that the heroin group reacted faster to probes associated with substance-related pictures than neutral pictures, and they directed more initial fixations and maintained longer initial fixation durations toward substance-related pictures than neutral pictures. However, attentional bias was not correlated with addiction severity in the heroin group. Conclusion: These findings suggest that attentional bias towards substance-related cues occurs in heroin dependents, although this bias might not be associated with the severity of drug-using behavior.

Editorial: Behavioral and physiological bases of attentional biases: paradigms, participants, and stimuli.

Editorial: Behavioral and physiological bases of attentional biases: paradigms, participants, and stimuli.

No Evidence of Attentional Bias In Statistics Anxiety

The role of attentional bias in statistics anxiety was explored through cognitive and affective tasks. Participants consisted of 76 (73.7% females) students in the James Cook University Psychology programs at the Australia (35.5%) and Singapore campuses (64.5%). Participants completed the emotional Stroop task and the dot probe task, and measures of statistics anxiety and social desirability. No evidence of attentional bias was found. This could be due several methodological reasons. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Can the dot probe task detect food-related attentional biases in restrained eaters?

Three studies explored whether food-related attentional biases (orientation/disengagement) can be found in non-clinically restrained eaters using dot probe tasks. It was hypothesised that highly restrained eaters (compared to unrestrained eaters) would be quicker to identify probes appearing in the same location as food compared to neutral pictures. Food/neutral picture pairs were presented for 200 ms (orientation) and 2000 ms (disengagement). In study one, 60 females divided into high (n = 29)/low (n = 31) restraint groups showed no evidence of attentional bias (orientation or disengagement). Both groups had negative mean bias scores indicating slight attentional avoidance of food. In study two, 60 females divided into high (n = 29)/low (n = 31) restraint groups completed a modified dot probe task based on image ratings. Again, no evidence of attentional bias was found amongst either participant group. In study three, 77 females divided into negative (n = 38) and neutral (n = 39) mood groups received a mood induction prior to completing a further modified dot probe task based on additional image ratings. There was no evidence of attentional bias, and no effect of restrained eating and/or mood on attention processing. These findings challenge the long-established theory that restrained eaters display biased attention processing of food, thought to maintain and exacerbate eating-related concerns. Therefore, the need for attention retraining amongst non-clinical females with eating-related concerns is also called into question. However, a few methodological limitations of the research could have contributed to null findings, and it is possible that attentional bias for food is only present in clinical eating disorder patients.

Attentional Processing of Faces in ASD: A Dot-Probe Study

The present study used the Dot-Probe paradigm to explore attentional allocation to faces compared with non-social images in high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing controls. There was no evidence of attentional bias in either group when stimuli were presented at individually calculated sub-threshold levels. However, at supra-threshold presentation (200ms), a face bias was found for control participants but not for those with ASD. These results add to evidence of reduced social interest in ASD, relative to controls, and further demonstrate when atypical social processing arises in the attentional time course.

Attentional bias in restrictive eating disorders. Stronger attentional avoidance of high-fat food compared to healthy controls?

A striking feature of the restricting subtype of anorexia nervosa (AN) is that these patients are extremely successful in restricting their food intake. Possibly, they are highly efficient in avoiding attentional engagement of food cues, thereby preventing more elaborate processing of food cues and thus subsequent craving. This study examined whether patients diagnosed with restrictive eating disorders (‘restricting AN-like patients’; N = 88) indeed show stronger attentional avoidance of visual food stimuli than healthy controls ( N = 76). Attentional engagement and disengagement were assessed by means of a pictorial exogenous cueing task, and (food and neutral) pictures were presented for 300, 500, or 1000 ms. In the 500 ms condition, both restricting AN-like patients and healthy controls demonstrated attentional avoidance of high-fat food as indexed by a negative cue-validity effect and impaired attentional engagement with high-fat food, whereas no evidence was found for facilitated disengagement from high-fat food. Within the group of restricting AN-like patients, patients with relatively severe eating pathology showed relatively strong attentional engagement with low-fat food. There was no evidence for attentional bias in the 300 and 1000 ms condition. The pattern of findings indicate that attentional avoidance of high-fat food is a common phenomenon that may become counterproductive in restricting AN-like patients, as it could facilitate their restricted food intake.

Eye tracking and physiological reactivity to threatening stimuli in posttraumatic stress disorder

This study tested the vigilance-avoidance model of anxiety and attention bias in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study used eye tracking technology to record initial fixations, pupil dilation, fixation time and concurrent skin conductance response to examine initial orienting towards threat stimuli and subsequent fixations. Twenty-one traumatized participants (11 diagnosed with PTSD and 10 trauma-exposed participants without PTSD) viewed 32 stimuli (with four words in each quadrant). Sixteen trials contained a trauma-relevant word in one quadrant and 16 had four neutral words. PTSD patients reported significantly greater number of initial fixations to trauma words, and a greater number of skin conductance responses to initial threat fixations. There were no significant differences in subsequent fixations to trauma words between groups. Although this study provides evidence of attentional bias towards threat that is accompanied by specific autonomic arousal, it does not indicate subsequent avoidance of threat stimuli in PTSD.