Alcohol-related attentional bias in a gaze contingency task: Comparing appetitive and non-appetitive cues

A long series of earlier studies demonstrated that fearful subjects selectively allocate attention to sources of perceived threat. Such attentional bias may not be limited to negative cues. It is hypothesized that attentional bias serves to enhance early identification of action-relevant cues and that such bias also occurs when subjects are confronted with positive valenced cues that evoke an urge to act immediately. In order to determine whether or not the attentional bias effect is limited to unpleasant stimuli, we studied the effects of 24 hours of fasting, focusing our attention on a possible attentional bias for (positively evaluated) food stimuli. The experiment controlled for emotionality effects. It is shown that fasting results in a positive evaluation of food stimuli and an increased desire for these stimuli. The attentional bias effects found were slight and more likely attributable to the increased urge to act than to general emotionality effects. The power of the experimental manipulation and the computerized Stroop task are discussed.

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Beer? Over here! Examining attentional bias towards alcoholic and appetitive stimuli in a visual search eye-tracking task

10.31234/osf.io/bu5g4 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Charlotte Rebecca Pennington ◽

Adam Qureshi ◽

Rebecca Monk ◽

Derek Heim

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Attentional Bias ◽

Dwell Time ◽

Response Times ◽

Tracking Task ◽

Visual Array ◽

Social Drinkers ◽

Visual Probe ◽

Appetitive Stimuli ◽

Appetitive Cues

Rationale: Experimental tasks that demonstrate alcohol-related attentional bias typically expose participants to single-stimulus targets (e.g., addiction stroop, visual probe, anti-saccade task), which may not correspond fully with real-world contexts where alcoholic and non-alcoholic cues simultaneously compete for attention. Moreover, alcoholic stimuli are rarely matched to other appetitive non-alcoholic stimuli. Objectives: To address these limitations by utilising a conjunction search eye-tracking task and matched stimuli to examine alcohol-related attentional bias. Methods: Thirty social drinkers (Mage = 19.87, SD = 1.74) were asked to detect whether alcoholic (beer), non-alcoholic (water) or non-appetitive (detergent) targets were present or absent amongst a visual array of matching and non-matching distractors. Both behavioural response times and eye-movement dwell time were measured. Results: Social drinkers were significantly quicker to detect alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive targets relative to non-appetitive targets in an array of matching and mismatching distractors. Similarly, proportional dwell time was lower for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive distractors relative to non-appetitive distractors, suggesting that appetitive targets were relatively easier to detect. Conclusions: Social drinkers may exhibit generalised attentional bias towards alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive cues. This adds to emergent research suggesting that the mechanisms driving these individual’s attention towards alcoholic cues might ‘spill over’ to other appetitive cues, possibly due to associative learning.

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Alcohol-related attentional bias in a gaze contingency task: Comparing appetitive and non-appetitive cues

10.31234/osf.io/zhfsx ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Adam Qureshi ◽

Rebecca Monk ◽

Charlotte Rebecca Pennington ◽

Thomas Wilcockson ◽

Derek Heim

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Attentional Bias ◽

Peripheral Vision ◽

Reduction Process ◽

Target Object ◽

Problem Drinkers ◽

Appetitive Stimuli ◽

Identification Test ◽

Consumption Practices ◽

Appetitive Cues

BackgroundNon-problem drinkers attend automatically to alcohol-related cues compared to non-alcohol related cues on tests of inhibitory control. Moreover, attentional bias for alcohol-related cues varies between problem and non-problem drinkers.AimTo examine attentional bias towards alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive cues between problem and non-problem drinkers.MethodForty-one university students (9 male, 32 female; Mage = 21.50) completed an eye-tracking gaze contingency paradigm, measuring the number of times participants looked at peripherally and centrally located stimuli (break frequency) when instructed to maintain focus on a target object. Stimuli consisted of appetitive alcohol-related (e.g., wine), appetitive non-alcohol-related (e.g., cola) and non-appetitive (e.g., fabric softener) stimuli. Participants were split using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) into non-problem (M AUDIT = 3.86) and problematic drinkers (M AUDIT = 11.59).ResultsProblematic drinkers had higher break frequencies towards peripheral appetitive stimuli than towards non-appetitive stimuli, while break frequency was equivalent between appetitive cues presented centrally (alcohol and non-alcohol-related). In contrast, there were no differences in break frequency across stimuli type or cue presentation location (central or peripheral) for non-problem drinkers.ConclusionIn contrast to non-problem drinkers, people displaying more problematic consumption practices may find it more difficult to inhibit eye movements towards appetitive stimuli, particularly when in peripheral vision. This may suggest that attentional biases, as measured in terms of overt eye movements, in problem drinkers may be most powerful when the alcoholic and appetitive stimuli are not directly in field of view. An uncertainty reduction process in the allocation of attention to appetitive cues may help explain the patterns of results observed

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Attentional Bias Among Adolescents Who Stutter: Evidence for a Vigilance–Avoidance Effect

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00090 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (10) ◽

pp. 3349-3363

Author(s):

Naomi H. Rodgers ◽

Jennifer Y. F. Lau ◽

Patricia M. Zebrowski

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Attentional Bias ◽

Preliminary Evidence ◽

Cutoff Score ◽

Attentional Disengagement ◽

Social Stimuli ◽

Facial Stimuli ◽

The Social ◽

Attentional Engagement ◽

High Social Anxiety

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine group and individual differences in attentional bias toward and away from socially threatening facial stimuli among adolescents who stutter and age- and sex-matched typically fluent controls. Method Participants included 86 adolescents (43 stuttering, 43 controls) ranging in age from 13 to 19 years. They completed a computerized dot-probe task, which was modified to allow for separate measurement of attentional engagement with and attentional disengagement from facial stimuli (angry, fearful, neutral expressions). Their response time on this task was the dependent variable. Participants also completed the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) and provided a speech sample for analysis of stuttering-like behaviors. Results The adolescents who stutter were more likely to engage quickly with threatening faces than to maintain attention on neutral faces, and they were also more likely to disengage quickly from threatening faces than to maintain attention on those faces. The typically fluent controls did not show any attentional preference for the threatening faces over the neutral faces in either the engagement or disengagement conditions. The two groups demonstrated equivalent levels of social anxiety that were both, on average, very close to the clinical cutoff score for high social anxiety, although degree of social anxiety did not influence performance in either condition. Stuttering severity did not influence performance among the adolescents who stutter. Conclusion This study provides preliminary evidence for a vigilance–avoidance pattern of attentional allocation to threatening social stimuli among adolescents who stutter.

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