The dot-probe task to measure emotional attention: A suitable measure in comparative studies?

Abstract

For social animals, attending to and recognizing the emotional expressions of other individuals is of crucial importance for their survival and likely has a deep evolutionary origin. Gaining insight into how emotional expressions evolved as adaptations over the course of evolution can be achieved by making direct cross-species comparisons. To that extent, experimental paradigms that are suitable for investigating emotional processing across species need to be developed and evaluated. The emotional dot-probe task, which measures attention allocation toward emotional stimuli, has this potential. The task is implicit, and subjects need minimal training to perform the task successfully. Findings in nonhuman primates, although scarce, show that they, like humans, have an attentional bias toward emotional stimuli. However, the wide literature on human studies has shown that different factors can have important moderating effects on the results. Due to the large heterogeneity of this literature, these moderating effects often remain unnoticed. We here review this literature and show that subject characteristics and differences in experimental designs affect the results of the dot-probe task. We conclude with specific recommendations regarding these issues that are particularly relevant to take into consideration when applying this paradigm to study animals.

Event‐related potentials of attentional bias toward faces in the dot‐probe task: A systematic review

“…Recent reviews (Bantin et al, 2016;Bar-Haim et al, 2007;Frewen et al, 2008;van Rooijen et al, 2017) and empirical evidence (Price et al, 2015;Staugaard, 2009) suggested that relying on RT to study attentional bias is difficult, and different methodologies used could affect our understanding of the time course of attentional bias toward facial expressions. In addition, fMRI has been more reliable than RT in measuring attentional bias (White et al, 2016) but has very poor temporal resolution.…”

Recognition of facial expressions is moderated by Islamic cues

“…In their emotion recognition study, they showed that covering the face by a niqāb, hiding the lower part of the face, resulted in better fear recognition, but worse happiness recognition, compared to when the exact same parts of the face were hidden under a cap and a shawl. In their experiment, the stimuli were very briefly presented to observers who were in turn stimulated to react as fast as they could, which they did, especially when being confronted with a threat (Kret & De Gelder, 2012;see also De Valk, Wijnen, & Kret, 2015;Van Rooijen, Ploeger, & Kret, 2017).…”

Attention Towards Emotions is Modulated by Familiarity with the Expressor. A Comparison Between Bonobos and Humans

“…We used generalized linear mixed models (SPSS v20, α =.05) for the analyses, which contained a nested structure defined by trials (25) nested within sessions (21)(22)(23)(24) nested within participants (4).…”

“…To make inter-species comparisons of selective attention for emotions possible, the emotional dot-probe paradigm has been proven useful 22,23 . In the task, individuals have to press a central dot, followed by a short presentation of an emotional and a neutral stimulus.…”

“…Whether this bias in bonobos is modulated by the familiarity of the human expressor is an exploratory question. For humans, we hypothesize that an attentional bias towards emotions exists for expressions of unfamiliar individuals 22 . We also expect that this bias will be more pronounced for familiar individuals as compared to unfamiliar individuals, reflecting the parochial tendencies of humans 9 .…”