Test-retest reliability of a smartphone-based approach-avoidance task: Effects of retest period, stimulus type, and demographics

Zech, Hilmar; Gable, Philip A.; Dijk, Wilco W. van; Dillen, Lotte F. van

doi:10.3758/s13428-022-01920-6

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“… 26 Other studies using a mobile version of the AAT indicated that test-retest reliability across eight measurement occasions was low while split-half reliability was high, again indicating temporal fluctuations in approach biases. 27 This is in line with findings obtained from other indirect measures that showed modest stability over time. 28 Such within-subject fluctuations in biases are probably not only due to random variation, as approach-avoidance biases have been shown to decrease with after-meal-satiety in normal-weight individuals, and they have been shown to change based on individuals’ current affective states.…”

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confidence: 89%

Testing the effectiveness of a mobile approach avoidance intervention and measuring approach biases in an ecological momentary assessment context: study protocol for a randomised-controlled trial

et al. 2023

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IntroductionUnhealthy eating behaviour is a major contributor to obesity and related diseases and is associated with a behavioural bias to approach rather than avoid desired foods, as measured with reaction time tasks. Approach-avoidance interventions (AAIs) have been proposed as a way to modify food evaluations and help people to eat in accordance with their dietary goals. Mobile implementations of AAI might be easily accessible, low threshold interventions, but their effectiveness has not been established yet.Methods and analysisParticipants who aim to change their eating behaviour are randomised to intervention or control groups. They complete six sessions of a smartphone-based AAI, in which they push (ie, avoid) or pull (ie, approach) personalised food images. Intervention group participants always avoid foods that they personally want to eat less often and approach foods that they personally want to eat more often. In the control group, images are paired equally often with both response directions. To evaluate contextual and dynamic intervention effects, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is measured throughout, with questions about food intake, hunger, stress, emotions, eating intentions, food craving and impulsivity twice a day. Additional EMA preintervention and postintervention measures are administered before and after the intervention phase (4 days each) with a 1-day follow-up EMA 4 weeks after the intervention. Multilevel models will examine the temporal covariance between approach bias and self-reported variables as well as short-term and long-term intervention effects on approach bias, food intake and craving.Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Salzburg. Results will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at scientific conferences.Trial registration numberGerman Clinical Trials Register DRKS, registration number DRKS00030780.

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confidence: 89%

Testing the effectiveness of a mobile approach avoidance intervention and measuring approach biases in an ecological momentary assessment context: study protocol for a randomised-controlled trial

et al. 2023

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“…For RT-based food approach tendencies, internal consistencies (average Spearman-Brown corrected split-half reliabilities) were acceptable for basic research (r = .80) but higher than those generally reported in AAT-research (mean r = .52; Zech et al, 2022). We assessed test-retest reliability both based on the consistency of two single sessions (ICC_1;…”

Section: Reliabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another indication of dynamic approach tendencies is that the AATs test-retest reliability is generally reported to be low, whereas its split-half reliability is generally reported to be high (Kahveci et. al., 2021;Machulska et al, 2022;Zech et al, 2022)-a pattern that indicates that a measure likely detects state changes (Hedge et al, 2018). If approach tendencies indeed fluctuate, overconsumption may be associated with a dysregulation of need-based fluctuations of approach tendencies, rather than chronically elevated approach tendencies.…”

Section: Dynamic Food Approach Tendenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Food approach dynamics in daily life: Speed and force of food approach movements fluctuate with hunger, but less so for people with high BMI

Zech¹,

Dijk²,

Dillen³

2022

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Researchers have suggested that overconsumption of food, alcohol, and drugs could be explained by chronically elevated approach tendencies to rewarding but unhealthy stimuli. Here, we use the example of food to show that dysregulated rather than chronically elevated approach tendencies are associated with negative health outcomes. To this end, we developed a new smartphone-based paradigm to measure dynamic changes in food approach tendencies outside the laboratory (piloted with N = 48). We demonstrated in three pre-registered experiments (total N = 367) that food approach tendencies decrease from before to after people have eaten. We further show that in overweight and obese participants, these dynamics are disrupted, as their food approach tendencies increase rather than decrease after meals. In addition to showing these effects based on traditional reaction time-based food approach tendencies, we also demonstrate these patterns in a novel measure of response force—a measure that has long been used to study motivation in animals but has received little attention in humans. Together, our findings suggest that both reaction-time based, and force-based approach tendencies change dynamically in accordance with people’s need states and that disruptions in these dynamics are associated with negative health outcomes, such as overweight and obesity.

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“…The relevantfeature AAT, in contrast, directly manipulates the contingency between a task-relevant feature of the stimulus and the response, for example by measuring chocolate approachavoidance bias by requiring participants to approach chocolate stimuli during one block and to avoid it during another block. This task usually has a high reliability, from around .90 (Zech, Gable, van Dijk, & van Dillen, 2022), to around .70 (Hofmann, Friese, & Gschwendner, 2009;, up to .50 (Kahveci, Van Bockstaele, et al, 2020); however, the direct nature of its instructions make it easy for the participant to figure out what the task is about.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

How pre-processing decisions affect the reliability and validity of the Approach-Avoidance Task: Evidence from simulations and multiverse analyses with six datasets

Kahveci¹,

Rinck²,

Alebeek³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Reaction time (RT) data are often pre-processed before analysis by rejecting outliers and errors and aggregating the data. In stimulus-response compatibility paradigms such as the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT), researchers often decide how to pre-process the data without an empirical basis, leading to the use of methods that may hurt rather than help data quality. To provide this empirical basis, we investigated how different pre-processing methods affect the reliability and validity of this task. Our literature review revealed 108 different pre-processing pipelines among 163 examined studies. Using simulated and real datasets, we found that validity and reliability were negatively affected by retaining error trials, by replacing error RTs with the mean RT plus a penalty, by retaining outliers, and by removing the highest and lowest sample-wide RT percentiles as outliers. We recommend removing error trials and rejecting RTs deviating more than 2 or 3 SDs from the participant mean. Bias scores were more reliable but not more valid if computed with means or D-scores rather than with medians. Bias scores were less accurate if based on averaging multiple conditions together, as with compatibility scores, rather being than based on separate averages per condition, as with double-difference scores. We call upon the field to drop the suboptimal practices to improve the psychometric properties of the AAT. We also call for similar investigations in related RT-based cognitive bias measures such as the implicit association task, as their commonly accepted pre-processing practices currently involve many of the aforementioned discouraged methods.

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Test-retest reliability of a smartphone-based approach-avoidance task: Effects of retest period, stimulus type, and demographics

Cited by 13 publications

References 82 publications

Testing the effectiveness of a mobile approach avoidance intervention and measuring approach biases in an ecological momentary assessment context: study protocol for a randomised-controlled trial

Testing the effectiveness of a mobile approach avoidance intervention and measuring approach biases in an ecological momentary assessment context: study protocol for a randomised-controlled trial

Food approach dynamics in daily life: Speed and force of food approach movements fluctuate with hunger, but less so for people with high BMI

How pre-processing decisions affect the reliability and validity of the Approach-Avoidance Task: Evidence from simulations and multiverse analyses with six datasets

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