scholarly journals A Preliminary Investigation of the Time Course of Attention Bias Variability in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The Moderating Role of Attentional Control

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Bardeen ◽  
Mathew T. Tull ◽  
Thomas A. Daniel ◽  
John Evenden ◽  
Erin N. Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Attention Bias ◽  
Experimental Session ◽  
Dot Probe ◽  
Probe Task ◽  
Attention Bias Variability

The present study sought to explicate the time-course of posttraumatic stress (PTS)-related attentional bias to threat (ABT) by examining differences in attention bias variability (ABV; a measure which accounts for the temporal dynamics of ABT). A dot-probe task with four presentation durations was used to capture both subliminal and supraliminal stages of processing. Task stimuli consisted of neutral and threat images. Attentional control (AC) was examined as a moderator of the relationship between PTSD and ABV. At an experimental session, participants (PTSD = 11, trauma control = 18) completed questionnaires, a modified dot-probe task, and a stimulus-response task measuring AC. Individuals in the PTSD group exhibited greater ABV compared to trauma control participants. AC moderated this relationship, with participants with PTSD and poor AC exhibiting significantly greater ABV than trauma-exposed control participants with poor AC. These effects remained significant after accounting for traditionally calculated ABT scores and variability on trials for which only neutral stimuli were present, thus ensuring that the observed effects were specific to the presence of threat stimuli and not merely a function of general variability in response times. Findings implicate AC as a buffering mechanism against threat-related attentional dyscontrol among those with PTSD. Clinical implications will be discussed.

Money talks in attention bias modification: Reward in a dot-probe task affects attentional biases

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 118-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ólafía Sigurjónsdóttir ◽  
Andri S. Björnsson ◽  
Sigurbjörg J. Ludvigsdóttir ◽  
Árni Kristjánsson
Keyword(s):  
Attention Bias ◽  
Attentional Biases ◽  
Dot Probe ◽  
Attention Bias Modification ◽  
Probe Task ◽  
Bias Modification

Attention bias variability and posttraumatic stress symptoms: the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1300-1307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia K. Klanecky Earl ◽  
Alyssa M. Robinson ◽  
Mackenzie S. Mills ◽  
Maya M. Khanna ◽  
Yair Bar-Haim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Attention Bias ◽  
Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Stress Symptoms ◽  
Attention Bias Variability

scholarly journals The dot-probe attention bias task as a method to assess psychological wellbeing after anesthesia: A study with adult female long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren C. Cassidy ◽  
Emily J. Bethell ◽  
Ralf R. Brockhausen ◽  
Susann Boretius ◽  
Stefan Treue ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Macaca Fascicularis ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Attention Bias ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Psychological Wellbeing ◽  
Dot Probe ◽  
Probe Task ◽  
Laboratory Procedures ◽  
Measuring Reaction Time ◽  
The Impact

Understanding the impact routine research and laboratory procedures have on animals is crucial to improving their wellbeing and to the success and reproducibility of the research they are involved in. Cognitive measures of welfare offer insight into animals’ internal psychological state, but require validation. Attention bias - the tendency to attend to one type of information over another – is a cognitive phenomenon documented in humans and animals that is known to be modulated by affective state (i.e., emotions). Hence, changes in attention bias may offer researchers a deeper perspective of their animals’ psychological wellbeing. The dot-probe task is an established method for quantifying attention bias in humans (by measuring reaction time to a dot-probe replacing pairs of stimuli), but has yet to be validated in animals. We developed a dot-probe task for long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) to determine if the task can detect changes in attention bias following anesthesia, a context known to modulate attention and trigger physiological arousal in macaques. Our task included the following features: stimulus pairs of threatening and neutral facial expressions of conspecifics and their scrambled counterparts, two stimuli durations (100 and 1000 ms), and counterbalancing of the dot-probe’s position on the touchscreen (left, right) and location relative to the threatening stimulus. We tested eight group-housed adult females on different days relative to being anesthetized (baseline and one-, three-, seven-, and 14-days after). At baseline, monkeys were vigilant to threatening content when stimulus pairs were presented for 100 ms, but not 1000 ms. On the day immediately following anesthesia, we found evidence that attention bias changed to an avoidance of threatening content. Attention bias returned to threat vigilance by the third day post-anesthesia and remained so up to the last day of testing (14 days after anesthesia). We also found that attention bias was independent of the type of stimuli pair (i.e., whole face vs. scrambled counterparts), suggesting that the scrambled stimuli retained aspects of the original stimuli. Nevertheless, whole faces were more salient to the monkeys as responses to these trials were generally slower than to scrambled stimulus pairs. Overall, our study suggests it is feasible to detect changes in attention bias following anesthesia using the dot-probe task in non-human primates. Our results also reveal important aspects of stimulus preparation and experimental design.

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