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

Grafton, Ben; MacLeod, Colin

doi:10.1080/02699931.2014.881326

Cited by 117 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Previous research has proposed that orienting and disengagement may be mediated by different systems [24] that are differentially affected by a stimulus' threat value [8,26]. The current study shows additional support for this notion by demonstrating that time-on-task has a differential effect on the orienting to and the disengagement from threat.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Previous paradigms like visual search and dot-probe have struggled to disentangle the orienting of attention from the subsequent disengagement once a stimulus is attended, because they failed to control focal attention at the time of threat presentation (for a similar argument see [26][27][28]). For instance, in the dot probe paradigm, attentional orienting to a task-goal irrelevant threatening cue is inferred when the response to a subsequently presented neutral target is faster when it is presented in the threat location (validly-cued trials) compared to trials that do not contain a threatening cue [4,[29][30][31][32].…”

Section: Whereas the Majority Of Studies Have Demonstrated A Fear-enhmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been argued that the disengagement of focal attention is completely under voluntary top-down control, whereas the pre-attentive orienting response may be driven more strongly by automatic, reflexive processes [24]. Moreover, previous research has suggested that threat stimuli can independently affect orienting and disengagement [8,26]. For example, Grafton and…”

Section: Whereas the Majority Of Studies Have Demonstrated A Fear-enhmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…MacLeod [26] have demonstrated that pre-attentive orienting to and delayed disengagement from threat in an anxious sample were uncorrelated. Additionally, Vromen and colleagues [8] have demonstrated that, whereas both orienting to and disengagement from threat are contingent on top-down control, orienting to threat may indeed be relatively less affected by task-relevance.…”

Section: Whereas the Majority Of Studies Have Demonstrated A Fear-enhmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Top-down influences on the attentional orienting to and disengagement from threat

Vromen¹

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The rapid detection and processing of potential threats enables a fast response to danger and provides a survival benefit (e.g. Tooby & Cosmides, 1990).Theories of threat processing suggest that we have a specialized threat module that enables the automatic (i.e. bottom-up driven) detection and evaluation of stimuli with a high threat value (Bentz & Schiller, 2015;2015;). Such theories suggest that threat processing is (largely) unaffected by top-down cognitive influences, but it remains debated whether attention to threat is contingent on top-down influences.Furthermore, it remains unexplored whether top-down processes can differentially affect the pre-attentive orienting of attention to threat and the subsequent disengagement of focal attention from such a threat. Strong versions of the threat module would predict that both the early (i.e. orienting) and later processing (i.e. disengagement) of threat should be unaffected by top-down influences, whereas more moderate versions would propose only the early stages of threat processing (i.e. orienting) to be unaffected by topdown processes. Theories of attention on the other hand do not explicitly model attention to be contingent on a stimulus' threat value. Such theories propose that only a stimulus its features (e.g. green) can be processed pre-attentively and thus a stimulus' identity and its associated threat value should not drive orienting , Wolfe, Cave, & Franzel, 1989 Wolfe, , 2006. Moreover, such theories propose that both orienting and disengagement should be subject to top-down modulation, albeit perhaps to different degrees (see .In this thesis I assessed whether top-down task goals modulate attention to threat. I assessed specifically how the relevance of a potential threat to the current task-goal affects the orienting and disengagement of attention. To disentangle orienting and disengagement, I developed a novel cueing paradigm that controlled the allocation of attention before the threat presentation. On disengagement trials, attention would be precued to the threat location; on orienting trials attention would be pre-cued to one of the non-threat locations. The goal-relevance of the threat was manipulated by rendering the threat distractor its identity similar or dissimilar to one of the targets.In Chapter 2, I assessed the influence of top-down task goals on the disengagement of focal attention. Specifically, I investigated whether disengagement from a simplistic threat distractor (spider silhouette) is contingent on the threat distractor's relevance to the immediate task-goal. Across two experiments I varied which stimuli were the designated targets (coloured green) that required a response. The results show that iii the threat distractor delayed disengagement when its identity was relevant to the current task-goal (i.e. identify whether the target is a spider or cat), but not when it was irrelevant to the task-goal (i.e. identify whether the target is a bird or fish). Thus, chapter 2 provides initial evidence that disengagement from...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Whereas the Majority Of Studies Have Demonstrated A Fear-enhmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Whereas the Majority Of Studies Have Demonstrated A Fear-enhmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Whereas the Majority Of Studies Have Demonstrated A Fear-enhmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Top-down influences on the attentional orienting to and disengagement from threat

Vromen¹

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“…To discriminate these two facets of attentional selectivity requires an experimental approach specifically designed to dissociate them. Grafton and MacLeod (2014) have recently developed the Attentional Response to Distal and Proximal Emotional Information (ARDPEI) task for precisely this purpose, and have demonstrated that it is capable of dissociating engagement and disengagement biases in anxious individuals (see also Rudaizky et al 2014). Appropriate variants of the ARDPEI task could be employed to determine whether the attentional bias to positive information associated with elevated positive affectivity reflects increased attentional engagement with, or impaired attentional disengagement from, such information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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

Grafton

MacLeod

2016

J Happiness Stud

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In recent years there has been growing interest in determining the attentional basis of positive affectivity. Investigators have sought to evaluate the hypothesis that elevated positive affectivity is characterized by an attentional bias that favours the processing of positive information over neutral information. Unfortunately, in the studies carried out to date, the assessment procedures used by researchers to assess such attentional selectivity have either been methodologically limited or methodologically flawed. Hence, the validity of the hypothesis has remained indeterminate. To overcome the problems associated with attentional assessment procedures used in previous studies, and so shed light on the attentional basis of positive affectivity, we employed an appropriate variant of the attentional probe task. Our findings show that participants high in positive affectivity displayed greater relative attention to positive information compared to neutral information, than was the case for their low positive affectivity counterparts. Thus, the present results support the hypothesis that an attentional bias to positive information, relative to neutral information, is characteristic of elevated positive affectivity.

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Multi‐method assessment of irritability and differential linkages to neurophysiological indicators of attention allocation to emotional faces in young children

Deveney

Grasso

Hsu

et al. 2019

Developmental Psychobiology

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Facilitated attention toward angry stimuli (attention bias) may contribute to anger proneness and temper outbursts exhibited by children with high irritability. However, most studies linking attention bias and irritability rely on behavioral measures with limited precision and no studies have explored these associations in young children. The present study explores irritability‐related attention biases toward anger in young children (N = 128; ages 4–7 years) engaged in a dot‐probe task with emotional faces, as assessed with event‐related brain potential (ERP) indices of early selective attention and multi‐method assessment of irritability. Irritability assessed via semi‐structured clinical interview predicted larger anterior N1 amplitudes to all faces. In contrast, irritability assessed via a laboratory observation paradigm predicted reduced P1 amplitudes to angry relative to neutral faces. These findings suggest that altered early attentional processing occurs in young children with high irritability; however, the nature of these patterns may vary with methodological features of the irritability assessments. Future investigations using different assessment tools may provide greater clarity regarding the underlying neurocognitive correlates of irritability. Such studies may also contribute to the ongoing debates about how to best define and measure irritability across the developmental spectrum in a manner that is most informative for linkage to neural processes.

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

Cited by 117 publications

References 25 publications

Top-down influences on the attentional orienting to and disengagement from threat

Top-down influences on the attentional orienting to and disengagement from threat

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

Multi‐method assessment of irritability and differential linkages to neurophysiological indicators of attention allocation to emotional faces in young children

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