scholarly journals Trial-to-trial Carryover Effects on Spatial Attentional Bias

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Gladwin

Visual Probe Tasks (VPTs) have been extensively used to measure spatial attentional biases, but as usually analysed, VPTs do not consider trial-to-trial carryover effects of probe location: Does responding to a probe on, e.g., the location of a threat cue affect the bias on the subsequent trial? The aim of the current study was to confirm whether this kind of carryover exists, using a novel task version, the diagonalized VPT, designed to focus on such trial-to-trial interactions. Two versions of the task were performed by a sample of college students. In one version cues were coloured squares; in the other, cues were threat-related and neutral images. Both versions included partially random positive or negative response feedback and varying Cue-Probe Intervals (200 or 600 ms). Carryover effects were found in both versions. Responding to a probe at the location of a cue of a given colour induced an attentional bias on the subsequent trial in the direction of that colour. Responding to a threat-related cue induced an attentional bias towards threat on the subsequent trial. The results provide evidence that trial-to-trial carryover effects on spatial attentional bias indeed exist. A methodological implication is that previous probe location could be considered in analyses or re-analyses of spatial visual attention tasks.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Gladwin

BackgroundAlthough risky drinking and alcohol dependence have been associated with spatial attentional biases, concerns have been raised about the reliability of the frequently-used dot-probe task. A form of anticipatory bias related to predictive cues has been found to be related to alcohol-related processes, and to have high reliability in the context of threat stimuli. It remains to be determined whether this anticipatory attentional bias also has good reliability for alcohol stimuli. Further, correlations with drinking-related individual differences need to be replicated.Methods83 healthy adult participants were included, who completed the task and questionnaires on risky drinking (AUDIT-C), drinking motives (DMQ-R), reasons to abstain from drinking (RALD), and alcohol craving (ACQ). The task used a 400 ms Cue-Stimulus Interval, based on previous work. The Spearman-Brown split-half reliability of reaction time-based bias scores was calculated. The within-subject effect of probe location (predicted-alcohol versus predicted-non-alcohol) was tested using a paired-sample t-test. Correlations were calculated between bias scores and questionnaire scales; tests were one-sided for predicted effects and two-sided for exploratory effects.ResultsA good reliability of .81 was found. There was no overall bias. A predicted correlation between risky drinking and anticipatory bias towards alcohol was found, but no other predicted or exploratory effects.ConclusionsThe anticipatory attentional bias for alcohol is a reliably measurable individual difference, with some evidence that it is associated with risky drinking. Implicit measure of spatial attentional bias can achieve high reliability. Further study of attentional biases using predictive cues would appear to be promising.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Gladwin

Attention Bias Modification (ABM) aims to modulate attentional biases, but questions remain about its efficacy and there may be new variants yet to explore. The current study tested effects of a novel version of ABM, predictive ABM (predABM), using visually neutral cues predicting the locations of future threatening and neutral stimuli that had a chance of appearing after a delay. Such effects could also help understand anticipatory attentional biases measured using cued Visual Probe Tasks. 102 participants completed the experiment online. We tested whether training Towards Threat versus Away from Threat contingencies on the predABM would cause subsequent attentional biases towards versus away from threat versus neutral stimuli, respectively. Participants were randomly assigned and compared on attentional bias measured via a post-training Dot-Probe task. A significant difference was found between the attentional bias in the Towards Threat versus Away from Threat group. The training contingencies induced effects on bias in the expected direction, although the bias in each group separately did not reach significance. Stronger effects may require multiple training sessions. Nevertheless, the primary test confirmed the hypothesis, showing that the predABM is a potentially interesting variant of ABM. Theoretically, the results show that automatization may involve the process of selecting the outcome of a cognitive response, rather than a simple stimulus-response association. Training based on contingencies involving predicted stimuli affect subsequent attentional measures and could be of interest in future clinical studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Gladwin ◽  
Martin Möbius ◽  
Eni S. Becker

Attentional Bias Modification (ABM) aims to modulate attentional biases, but questions remain about its efficacy and there may be new variants yet to explore. The current study tested effects of a novel version of ABM, predictive ABM (predABM), using visually neutral cues predicting the locations of future threatening and neutral stimuli that had a chance of appearing after a delay. Such effects could also help understand anticipatory attentional biases measured using cued Visual Probe Tasks. One hundred and two participants completed the experiment online. We tested whether training Towards Threat versus Away from Threat contingencies on the predABM would cause subsequent attentional biases towards versus away from threat versus neutral stimuli, respectively. Participants were randomly assigned and compared on attentional bias measured via a post-training Dot-Probe task. A significant difference was found between the attentional bias in the Towards Threat versus Away from Threat group. The training contingencies induced effects on bias in the expected direction, although the bias in each group separately did not reach significance. Stronger effects may require multiple training sessions. Nevertheless, the primary test confirmed the hypothesis, showing that the predABM is a potentially interesting variant of ABM. Theoretically, the results show that automatization may involve the process of selecting the outcome of a cognitive response, rather than a simple stimulus-response association. Training based on contingencies involving predicted stimuli affect subsequent attentional measures and could be of interest in future clinical studies.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Perone ◽  
David Vaughn Becker ◽  
Joshua M. Tybur

Multiple studies report that disgust-eliciting stimuli are perceived as salient and subsequently capture selective attention. In the current study, we aimed to better understand the nature of temporal attentional biases toward disgust-eliciting stimuli and to investigate the extent to which these biases are sensitive to contextual and trait-level pathogen avoidance motives. Participants (N=116) performed in an Emotional Attentional Blink (EAB) task in which task-irrelevant disgust-eliciting, fear-eliciting, or neutral images preceded a target by 200, 500, or 800 milliseconds (i.e., lag two, five and eight respectively). They did so twice - once while not exposed to an odor, and once while exposed to either an odor that elicited disgust or an odor that did not - and completed a measure of disgust sensitivity. Results indicate that disgust-eliciting visual stimuli produced a greater attentional blink than neutral visual stimuli at lag two and a greater attentional blink than fear-eliciting visual stimuli at both lag two and at lag five. Neither the odor manipulations nor individual differences measures moderated this effect. We propose that visual attention is engaged for a longer period of time following disgust-eliciting stimuli because covert processes automatically initiate the evaluation of pathogen threats. The fact that state and trait pathogen avoidance do not influence this temporal attentional bias suggests that early attentional processing of pathogen cues is initiated independent from the context in which such cues are perceived.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Di Giorgio ◽  
Marco Lunghi ◽  
Giorgio Vallortigara ◽  
Francesca Simion

AbstractThe human visual system can discriminate between animate beings vs. inanimate objects on the basis of some kinematic cues, such as starting from rest and speed changes by self-propulsion. The ontogenetic origin of such capability is still under debate. Here we investigate for the first time whether newborns manifest an attentional bias toward objects that abruptly change their speed along a trajectory as contrasted with objects that move at a constant speed. To this end, we systematically manipulated the motion speed of two objects. An object that moves with a constant speed was contrasted with an object that suddenly increases (Experiment 1) or with one that suddenly decreases its speed (Experiment 2). When presented with a single speed change, newborns did not show any visual preference. However, newborns preferred an object that abruptly increases and then decreases its speed (Experiment 3), but they did not show any visual preference for the reverse sequence pattern (Experiment 4). Overall, results are discussed in line with the hypothesis of the existence of attentional biases in newborns that trigger their attention towards some visual cues of motion that characterized animate perception in adults.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. S41
Author(s):  
K. Jastrowski ◽  
R. Gibler ◽  
E. Beckmann ◽  
A. Lynch-Jordan ◽  
S. Kashikar-Zuck

2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Tracy ◽  
Nicholas Greco ◽  
Erika Felix ◽  
Donald F. Kilburg

Many proverbs seem to convey wisdom because they help people to reframe life's predicaments. Positive reframes, such as Every cloud has a silver lining, often draw positive implications from adverse circumstances (cf. “positive reappraisals,” “gain frames”). In contrast, negative reframes, such as All that glitters is not gold, provide helpful warnings about difficult situations, and therefore encourage proactive coping (cf. “problem-focused coping”). This study examined the validity of the distinction between positive and negative reframes and whether the distinction applies to proverbs. Six judges categorized 199 proverbs as positive or negative reframes. Results showed that the positive reframes were rated by college students as more pleasant, conceptually simpler, and more familiar than the negative reframes. Further, proverbs that were composed by students were of higher quality when they were positive rather than negative reframes. On the other hand, positive and negative reframes occurred similarly often among the 199 proverbs, and did not differ consistently in rated truth, rated imagery arousal, or reading grade level. We concluded that many proverbs can be regarded as positive or negative reframes, which constitute basic thinking strategies that help people cope with life's challenges.


1995 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 478-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Lee Hoxter ◽  
David Lester

Among 241 college students, both white and African-American adults were less willing to be personal friends with people of the other ethnic group than with people of their own ethnic group. African-American students were also less willing to be friends with Asian Americans than were white students.


2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Anil Kumar ◽  
Saibel Farishta ◽  
G Baiju ◽  
VK Taneja ◽  
RC Minocha ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The present study was undertaken to assess the skeletal craniofacial asymmetry in South Indian population by a posteroanterior cephalometric radiographic method. The skeletal craniofacial structures on one side of the face were compared with that of the other, by drawing various triangles representing different craniofacial regions. The sample consisted of 60 subjects (30 males and 30 females) aged between 18 to 25 years, who were mainly dental college students from South India. Overall 52 X-rays were obtained, with four errors each in the male and the female groups. The results revealed that the total facial structures in the South Indian population were larger on the left side (statistically insignificant). The cranial base area exhibited a greater degree of asymmetry than any other component area of the face, which might be due to the inaccuracy at the condylar point. How to cite this article Taneja VK, Kumar GA, Farishta S, Minocha RC, Baiju G, Gopal D. An Assessment of Skeletal Craniofacial Asymmetry in South Indian Population. J Contemp Dent Pract 2012;13(1):80-84.


Author(s):  
Cheryl I. Johnson ◽  
Daphne E. Whitmer ◽  
Matthew D. Marraffino ◽  
Lindsay B. Conner ◽  
Allison E. Garibaldi ◽  
...  

Adaptive training is tailored instruction designed to target an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, and it has been shown to improve learning outcomes and efficiency in a variety of domains, including flashcard training. The goal of this experiment was to determine whether the addition of other instructional strategies, such as enhanced feedback and pre-training, would further boost the learning benefits of an adaptive flashcard trainer. Thirty-nine college students learned to identify U.S. Navy ships using either a base version of the flashcard trainer, a version that included enhanced feedback, or a version that included pre-training and enhanced feedback. Results showed that the pre-training and enhanced feedback group significantly outperformed the other groups on delayed retention and transfer tests and showed higher learning efficiency. Implications for adaptive training and the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning are discussed.


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