Measurement of food-related approach–avoidance biases: Larger biases when food stimuli are task relevant

Abstract

Strong implicit responses to food have evolved to avoid energy depletion but contribute to overeating in today's affluent environments. The Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) supposedly assesses implicit biases in response to food stimuli: Participants push pictures on a monitor "away" or pull them "near" with a joystick that controls a corresponding image zoom. One version of the task couples movement direction with image content-independent features, for example, pulling blue-framed images and pushing green-framed images regardless of content ('irrelevant feature version'). However, participants might selectively attend to this feature and ignore image content and, thus, such a task setup might underestimate existing biases. The present study tested this attention account by comparing two irrelevant feature versions of the task with either a more peripheral (image frame color: green vs. blue) or central (small circle vs. cross overlaid over the image content) image feature as response instruction to a 'relevant feature version', in which participants responded to the image content, thus making it impossible to ignore that content. Images of chocolate-containing foods and of objects were used, and several trait and state measures were acquired to validate the obtained biases. Results revealed a robust approach bias towards food only in the relevant feature condition. Interestingly, a positive correlation with state chocolate craving during the task was found when all three conditions were combined, indicative of criterion validity of all three versions. However, no correlations were found with trait chocolate craving. Results provide a strong case for the relevant feature version of the AAT for bias measurement. They also point to several methodological avenues for future research around selective attention in the irrelevant versions and task validity regarding trait vs. state variables.

Approach bias modification training in bulimia nervosa and binge‐eating disorder: A pilot randomized controlled trial

“…While the training version of the task seems to work well as an intervention (at least in the domain of alcohol dependence [Eberl et al, 2013;Wiers et al, 2013]), the assessment version might not be best suited to detect existing approach biases. In line with research on the validity of the AAT in the alcohol domain (Kersbergen, Woud, & Field, 2015), we found in a recent study that the AAT is able to indicate an approach bias towards food only if participants are explicitly instructed to respond to the content of the pictures and not to taskirrelevant features such as the outline of the picture (Lender, Meule, Rinck, Brockmeyer, & Blechert, 2018).…”

Measuring approach–avoidance tendencies towards food with touchscreen-based arm movements

“…Specifically, the majority of studies that used joystick-based tasks did not demonstrate an approach bias towards (high-calorie) food relative to reactions to control stimuli or found such a bias only in certain subgroups of participants (Brockmeyer, Hahn, Reetz, Schmidt, & Friederich, 2015 ; Kakoschke, Kemps, & Tiggemann, 2015 ; Maas, Keijsers, et al, 2017 ; Maas, Keijsers, Rinck, Tanis, & Becker, 2015 ; Maas, Woud, et al, 2017 ; Machulska, Zlomuzica, Adolph, Rinck, & Margraf, 2015 ; Paslakis, Kühn, Grunert, & Erim, 2017 ; Paslakis et al, 2016 ). We previously demonstrated an approach bias towards chocolate-containing food in a predominantly young, female sample, but this bias was only found when stimulus categories (food vs. objects) were explicitly associated with approach–avoidance instructions (Lender, Meule, Rinck, Brockmeyer, & Blechert, 2018 ).…”

“…Specifically, we tested whether presenting a manikin (representing the participant) at the bottom half of the screen would facilitate approach-avoidance inclinations and whether presenting a manikin at the top half of the screen would reverse response patterns. As approach bias towards food was related to higher trait or state food craving in previous studies (Brockmeyer et al, 2015;Lender et al, 2018;Meule et al, 2019), we explored whether trait chocolate craving as well as state chocolate craving before and after the task were associated with approach-avoidance tendencies across all three studies. Although relationships between craving and approach biases have not been consistently found in the literature, positive relationships may provide an indication of convergent validity of our new paradigm.…”

A randomized controlled trial of a virtual reality based, approach-avoidance training program for alcohol use disorder: a study protocol

“…In addition to being easier to implement in VR, the stimuli-relevant AATP may have the potential to induce more cravings than the stimuli-irrelevant version because the patients are, like in CET, requested to focus attention on alcohol and associated stimuli [52,53]. Indeed, it has been suggested that the stimuli-irrelevant AATP may in some cases fail to induce bias because patients totally ignore the content of the picture and only respond to the stimuli-irrelevant content (the format of the picture) due to limits in attention span [77][78][79]. While assessment tools and interventions targeting attentional biases have exclusively applied stimuli-irrelevant versions (e.g.…”