Attentional bias towards emotional facial expressions in survivors of dating violence

Abstract

This study identified components of attentional bias (e.g. attentional vigilance, attentional avoidance and difficulty with disengagement) that are critical characteristics of survivors of dating violence (DV). Eye movements were recorded to obtain accurate and continuous information regarding attention. DV survivors with high post-traumatic stress symptoms (DV-High PTSS group; n = 20) and low post-traumatic stress symptoms (DV-Low PTSS group; n = 22) and participants who had never experienced DV (NDV group; n = 21) were shown screens displaying emotional (angry, fearful and happy) faces paired with neutral faces and negative (angry and fearful) faces paired with happy faces for 10 s. The results indicate that the DV-High PTSS group spent longer dwelling on angry faces over time compared with the DV-Low PTSS and NDV groups. This result implies that the DV-High PTSS group focused on specific trauma-related stimuli but does not provide evidence of an attentional bias towards threatening stimuli in general.

Attention to threat in posttraumatic stress disorder as indexed by eye-tracking indices: a systematic review

“…In Lee and Lee (2012) results indicated that increased dwell time on violent images in the high-PTSD group was relatively maintained throughout the 10-second trials (or the five 2-second intervals). In Lee and Lee (2014), similar results emerged with significant group differences in dwell time on angry and fearful faces maintained across time intervals. Thomas et al (2013) divided an overall presentation time of six seconds to three 2-seconds time intervals.…”

“…Four studies also incorporated general threat/negative stimuli in addition to trauma-specific stimuli to explore the level of threat specificity needed to elicit threat-related attention biases, which might reflect the generalization of these biases. Kimble et al (2010) used MVA pictures for Iraq war images, Thomas et al (2013) used general negative and general threat images in addition to the specific personal identified trauma images, Lee and Lee (2012) used dysphoric images in addition to the violent ones for DV victims, and Lee and Lee (2014) included fearful faces in addition to the angry faces, as only angry faces were considered trauma-relevant stimuli for DV survivors. Five studies included also positivevalence stimuli aiming to examine the emotionality hypothesis, namely, determine whether attention bias is manifested exclusively for threatening/negative information, or whether it may also be manifested when different valenced information is presented, such as positive stimuli.…”

“…The high and low PTSD groups also dwelled significantly longer on dysphoric stimuli and significantly shorter on positive stimuli compared to the HC group. In a subsequent study, similar participant groups were shown an emotional face (angry, fearful or happy) paired with a neutral face, as well as pairs of negative (angry or fearful) and happy faces for 10 seconds (Lee and Lee, 2014). Angry faces served as trauma-related stimuli, fearful faces were included to examine the generalizability of biases to general threat/negative stimuli, and happy faces were once again used to examine the emotionality hypothesis.…”

“…Relatedly, future eye-tracking research should better define trauma-specificity, especially when using facial stimuli. For example, while Armstrong et al (2013) defined fearful faces as trauma-relevant for veterans, Lee and Lee (2014) considered fear faces as reflecting general threat for DV survivors.…”

“…PTSD group: disgusted faces > happy faces -dwell time 6. PTSD group: fearful faces > happy faces -dwell time 0.74 0.80 0.59 0.63 0.56 0.50 Effect sizes were calculated based on reported means and standard deviations of the groups Bryant et al (1995) Journal article Lee & Lee (2014) Journal article 1. PTSD > TEHC -dwell time on angry faces 2.…”