scholarly journals The Study of Security Priming on Avoidant Attentional Biases: Combining Microsaccadic Eye-Movement Measurement With a Dot-Probe Task

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Louise Mellor ◽  
Elia Psouni

Microsaccades are small fixational eye movements that have shown to index covert attentional shifts. The present experiment combined microsaccades with performance measures from a dot-probe task to study influences of attachment security priming on the attentional biases of individuals high in attachment avoidance. Security priming is an experimental manipulation aimed at boosting felt security. Using a randomized, mixed design, we measured differences in attentional vigilance toward angry and neutral faces as a function of priming (neutral vs. secure) and attachment avoidance. Individuals high in avoidance habitually tend to withdraw from, or otherwise dismiss, emotionally salient stimuli. Here, we operationalized attentional withdrawal based on both task performance in the dot-probe task and microsaccadic movements. In addition, unlike previous studies where priming salience for the individual participant has been unclear, we used a standardized narrative method for attachment script assessment, securing an indication of how strongly each participant was primed. Dot-probe data significantly captured the link between avoidance and attentional disengagement, though from all facial stimuli (angry and neutral). Although microsaccadic movements did not capture avoidant attentional disengagement, they positively correlated to dot-probe data suggesting measurement convergence. Avoidance was associated with weaker security priming and no overall effect of priming on attention was found, indicating a need for further exploration of suitable priming methods to bypass avoidant deactivation. Our results provide a first indication that, as an implicit looking measure, microsaccadic movements can potentially reveal where early attention is directed at the exact moment of stimulus presentation.

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 118-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ólafía Sigurjónsdóttir ◽  
Andri S. Björnsson ◽  
Sigurbjörg J. Ludvigsdóttir ◽  
Árni Kristjánsson

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 817-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben R. Lane ◽  
Kate E. Mulgrew ◽  
Doug Mahar ◽  
Melanie J. White ◽  
Siobhan A. Loughnan

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824401771277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario S. Staller ◽  
Benjamin Zaiser ◽  
Swen Körner ◽  
Jon C. Cole

2018 ◽  
Vol 261 ◽  
pp. 325-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Trapp ◽  
Christoph Kalzendorf ◽  
Corinna Baum ◽  
Göran Hajak ◽  
Stefan Lautenbacher

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (9) ◽  
pp. 1331-1340 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. A. Morgan ◽  
H. Rees ◽  
H. V. Curran

BackgroundThe attention-grabbing properties of drugs to drug-using individuals have been well documented and recent research has begun to suggest that such attentional bias may be related to the severity of drug dependency. Dependence on ketamine has been reported anecdotally but no systematic study has investigated this phenomenon. We aimed to explore attentional biases to incentive stimuli in different populations of ketamine users.MethodUsing a dot-probe paradigm, attentional bias to both drug-related and money-related stimuli was investigated in 150 participants: 30 frequent ketamine users, 30 infrequent ketamine users, 30 ex-ketamine users, 30 poly-drug users and 30 non-drug-using controls. Two stimulus presentation times were used (200 and 2000 ms) to investigate whether attentional bias was as a result of an automatic or a more conscious attentional shift. Participants also rated the degree to which stimuli used in the dot-probe paradigm were pleasurable.ResultsFrequent ketamine users demonstrated an attentional bias to both types of incentive stimuli only at the short stimulus presentation interval and this was significantly correlated with degree of ketamine use. No attentional biases were observed in any of the other groups. All groups rated money stimuli as more pleasurable than neutral stimuli.ConclusionsThese data support incentive models of drug use and demonstrate the ability of the attentional bias paradigm to discriminate recreational drug users from those with more dependent patterns of use. Ketamine is a potentially dependence-forming drug.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leentje Vervoort ◽  
Maya Braun ◽  
Maarten De Schryver ◽  
Tiffany Naets ◽  
Ernst H. W. Koster ◽  
...  

Several versions of the dot probe detection task are frequently used to assess maladaptive attentional processes associated with a broad range of psychopathology and health behavior, including eating behavior and weight. However, there are serious concerns about the reliability of the indices derived from the paradigm as measurement of attentional bias toward or away from salient stimuli. The present paper gives an overview of different attentional bias indices used in psychopathology research and scrutinizes three types of indices (the traditional attentional bias score, the dynamic trial-level base scores, and the probability index) calculated from a pictorial version of the dot probe task to assess food-related attentional biases in children and youngsters with and without obesity. Correlational analyses reveal that dynamic scores (but not the traditional and probability indices) are dependent on general response speed. Reliability estimates are low for the traditional and probability indices. The higher reliability for the dynamic indices is at least partially explained by general response speed. No significant group differences between youth with and without obesity are found, and correlations with weight are also non-significant. Taken together, results cast doubt on the applicability of this specific task for both experimental and individual differences research on food-related attentional biases in youth. However, researchers are encouraged to make and test adaptations to the procedure or computational algorithm in an effort to increase psychometric quality of the task and to report psychometric characteristics of their version of the task for their specific sample.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoë Franklin ◽  
Paul Holmes ◽  
Neil Fowler

Research into attentional biases and threatening, pain-related information has primarily been investigated using reaction time as the dependent variable. This study aimed to extend previous research to provide a more in depth investigation of chronic back pain and individuals’ attention to emotional stimuli by recording eye movement behavior. Individuals with chronic back pain (n = 18) were recruited from a back rehabilitation program and age and sex matched against 17 non-symptomatic controls. Participants’ eye movements were recorded whilst they completed a dot probe task, which included back pain specific threatening images and neutral images. There were no significant differences between chronic pain and control participants in attentional biases recorded using reaction time from the dot probe task. Chronic pain participants, however, demonstrated a significantly higher percentage of fixations, larger pupil diameter, a longer average fixation duration and faster first fixation to threatening compared to neutral images. They also had a significantly longer average fixation duration and larger pupil diameter to threatening images compared to control participants. The findings of this study suggest eye gaze metrics may provide a more sensitive measure of attentional biases in chronic pain populations. These findings may have important therapeutic implications for the patient and therapist.


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