Assessing the role of spatial engagement and disengagement of attention in anxiety-linked attentional bias: a critique of current paradigms and suggestions for future research directions

Abstract

A considerable volume of research has demonstrated an anxiety-linked attentional bias characterized by selective processing of threat stimuli. The last decade has seen growing interest in identifying the precise attentional mechanisms which underlie such selective processing to advance both theoretical and etiological models of anxiety. This research has particularly focused on the roles of spatial engagement and disengagement of attention. The relative contribution of these attentional components to selective processing of threat in anxious individuals remains unclear however. Moreover, we argue here that many of the tasks employed to examine these mechanisms, may not be capable of indexing the attentional processes that they claim to measure. In this article, we provide a methodological review, critically evaluating the adequacy of previous tasks employed to measure biased attentional engagement and disengagement. Based on a number of concerns raised about the ability of such tasks to differentiate these component attentional processes, we detail three task criteria that we believe are essential to be confident that a task will accurately index biased attentional engagement with, and disengagement from threat in anxious participants.

Enhanced probing of attentional bias: The independence of anxiety-linked selectivity in attentional engagement with and disengagement from negative information

“…In a more recent study that also adopted this approach, but contrasted two different exposure durations (i.e., 100 ms vs. 500 ms), Koster et al (2006) claim to have shown that, at the shorter exposure duration, their high-trait anxious participants displayed both enhanced attentional engagement with and impaired attentional disengagement from negative stimuli. However, we concur with previous researchers who have noted that given the ESC task does not satisfy the three key methodological criteria that must be met to separately assess engagement and disengagement biases, confidence in the conclusions drawn from studies that have used this common approach is compromised (Clarke et al, 2012;Mogg et al, 2008;Rudaizky, Basanovic, & MacLeod, 2013). …”

“…Unfortunately, the approach most often employed in previous attempts to discretely assess engagement and disengagement biases, commonly termed the emotional spatial cuing (ESC) task (e.g., Koster, Crombez, Verschuere, Van Damme, & GRAFTON AND MACLEOD 1288 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014, 28 (7) Wiersema, 2006), has been the focus of recent criticism concerning its capacity to adequately dissociate these two types of attentional selectivity (Clarke, MacLeod, & Guastella, 2012;Mogg, Holmes, Garner, & Bradley, 2008;Yiend, 2010). We believe such criticism is justified, as the ESC task does not satisfy these three methodological criteria.…”

“…Hence, previous researchers have emphasised the importance of developing new approaches for assessing these two types of attentional selectivity (Clarke et al, 2012;Rudaizky et al, 2013). The first aim of the present research was to develop a novel variant of the dotprobe task that fulfils all three criteria, which we term the Attentional Response to Distal vs. Proximal Emotional Information (ARDPEI) task.…”

A Positive Perspective on Attentional Bias: Positive Affectivity and Attentional Bias to Positive Information

“…It is widely accepted that the patterns of attentional selectivity revealed by procedures such as the attentional probe task could involve either selective attentional engagement with positive information, reflecting a disproportionate tendency for attention to become more readily captured by initially distal positive information, or could involve selective attentional disengagement from positive information, reflecting a disproportionate tendency for attention to remain more firmly held by initially proximal positive information (Clarke et al 2012). To discriminate these two facets of attentional selectivity requires an experimental approach specifically designed to dissociate them.…”

Associating LIPS and SWOLLEN: delayed attentional disengagement following words in sex contexts

“…The first possible mechanism is that the changed meaning of the target word, as a result of the contextual manipulation, "locks" the subject's attention to the spatial location of the target word, with a slower re-allocation (or "shifting") of spatial attention to the letter probe as a result (Clark, MacLeod, & Guastella, 2013). Another possible interpretation of delayed disengagement does not involve spatial attention per se, but a more general "behavioral freezing" (Clark et al, 2013) or "slowing" effect. For example, Bertels and Kolinsky (2016) demonstrated general slowing effects when people process negative words or taboo words.…”