Determinants and effects of attentional bias in smokers.

Much research has shown that individuals exhibit an attentional bias to stimuli related to their current concerns or pathologies. Using the emotional Stroop task, we investigated attentional bias in smokers. Ninety-six smokers either abstained from smoking for 24 hrs or smoked normally before color-naming smoking-related and neutral words. Both a blocked format (smoking and neutral words presented in separate blocks) and an unblocked format (smoking and neutral words presented in a mixed random sequence) were used. In the blocked format, abstinence caused an attentional bias to smoking-related stimuli, and the degree of attentional bias predicted the latency to the first cigarette of the morning. However, different results were obtained from the unblocked version of the task. We conclude that the emotional Stroop task is a useful tool to measure attentional bias in smokers and could be used in cessation studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias predicts outcome in smoking cessation.

Most attempts to quit smoking end in failure, with many quitters relapsing in the first few days. Responses to smoking-related cues may precipitate relapse. A modified emotional Stroop task-which measures the extent to which smoking-related words disrupt performance on a reaction time (RT) task-was used to index the distracting effects of smoking-related cues. Smokers (N=158) randomized to a high-dose nicotine patch (35 mg) or placebo patch completed the Stroop task on the 1st day of a quit attempt. Smokers using an active patch exhibited less attentional bias, making fewer errors on smoking related words. Smokers who showed greater attentional bias (slowed RT on the first block of smoking words) were significantly more likely to lapse in the short-term, even when controlling for self-reported urges at the test session. Attentional bias measures may tap an important component of dependence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Substance use and the paradox of good and bad attentional bias.

Habitual substance use is associated with attentional bias for stimuli related to the use. The current study tested whether individuals’ substance use can be predicted from their attentional bias for concern-related and substance-related stimuli. Participants (N = 71; 54% male) were selected among university students and the community. The study was conducted in Iran, in which alcohol consumption is illegal. Participants completed a substance use questionnaire and classic, substance-, and concern-related Stroop tests. The results show that after controlling for demographic variables and classic Stroop interference, increases in substance-related but decreases in concern-related reaction times predicted the amount of substances that had been consumed by the participants. Individuals’ attentional bias for both substance-related and substance-unrelated goals may be important in predicting substance use behavior. The implication of the findings for treatment prognosis has been discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of emotional valence on age differences in early processing and memory.

This study examined older and younger adults' attentional biases and subsequent incidental recognition memory for distracting positive, negative, and neutral words. Younger adults were more distracted by negative stimuli than by positive or neutral stimuli, and they correctly recognized more negative than positive words. Older adults, however, attended equally to all stimuli yet showed reliable recognition only for positive words. Thus, although an attentional bias toward negative words carried over into recognition performance for younger adults, older adults' bias appeared to be limited to remembering positive information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does priming a specific illness schema result in an attentional information-processing bias for specific illnesses?

Objective: To test a hypothesis derived from H. Leventhal, D. Meyer, and D. Nerenz's (1980) commonsense model that people possess implicit schemas for specific illnesses. Design: A 2 (illness vs. neutral shopping prime) × 2 (illness-related vs. control word) mixed design with repeated measures on the second factor. Participants primed for the common cold (Experiment 1) and cardiovascular disease (Experiment 2) were compared with participants receiving a neutral shopping prime on a modified Stroop color naming task. Main Outcome Measures: Attentional bias to illness related words was calculated as the difference between response latencies to illness words and neutral words under the prime conditions. Results: In Experiment 1, participants primed with common cold showed a response bias to words related to the common cold but not to words related to cardiovascular disease. Attentional bias among participants primed for common cold was significantly correlated with explicit illness representations assessed by the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire. Experiment 2 replicated the findings in a different illness domain. Conclusion: Illness-specific illness schemas can be activated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcoholic subjects' attentional bias in the processing of alcohol-related words.

Studied attentional bias for alcohol-related (AR) words in 13 alcoholic men and 17 matched control Ss with a modified version of the Stroop Color and Word Test that included color-interfering, AR, and neutral words. Results indicate that (1) alcoholic Ss responded more slowly to all word categories than control Ss, (2) both alcoholic and control Ss responded more slowly to color-interfering words than to neutral words, and (3) only alcoholic Ss responded more slowly to AR words than to neutral words. Findings indicate that when the alcoholic Ss were confronted with AR stimuli, cognitive processes presumably began that made it impossible for them to ignore the meaning of the words and their resources were allocated to the content of the alcohol stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioning-induced attentional bias for face stimuli measured with the emotional Stroop task.

People with anxiety disorder display attentional bias toward threat-related objects. Using classical fear conditioning, the authors investigated the possible source of such bias in normal participants. Following differential fear conditioning in which an angry face of either male or female (conditioned stimulus: CS+) was paired with mild electric fingershock (unconditioned stimulus: US) but the angry face of the other gender and all other facial expressions unpaired (CS-), an emotional Stroop task was administered. In the Stroop task, participants were required to identify the color of the facial stimuli (red, green, blue, or yellow). Response latency was significantly longer for the CS+ angry face than the other unpaired facial stimuli (CS-). Furthermore, this acquired attentional bias was positively correlated with the level of trait-anxiety measured before the conditioning and the degree of self-reported aversiveness of the US. Our results demonstrated that attentional bias could be induced in normal individuals through a simple associative learning procedure, and the acquisition is modulated by the level of trait anxiety and the level of perceived fear of the aversive US. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood-Congruent Attentional Bias in Dysphoria: Maintained Attention to and Impaired Disengagement From Negative Information.

Attentional bias to negative information has been proposed to be a cognitive vulnerability factor for the development of depression. In 2 experiments, the authors examined mood-congruent attentional bias in dysphoria. In both experiments, dysphoric and nondysphoric participants performed an attentional task with negative, positive, and neutral word cues preceding a target. Targets appeared either at the same or at the opposite location of the cue. Overall, results indicate that dysphoric participants show maintained attention for negative words at longer stimulus presentations, which is probably caused by impaired attentional disengagement from negative words. Furthermore, nondysphoric participants maintain their attention more strongly to positive words. These results are discussed in relation to recent developments in the pathogenesis and treatment of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias for smoking and affective stimuli: A Stroop task study.

Prior research has demonstrated attentional biases to smoking-related cues among smokers, and several lines of research suggest strong ties between smoking and negative affect. The authors tested attentional biases to both smoking and affective cues in 27 smokers using an emotional Stroop paradigm, and examined the relationship between these forms of attentional bias. Findings indicated significant attentional biases to smoking-related and negative-affect words, but not positive-affect words. In addition, there was a significant correlation between the degree of attentional bias to smoking and negative-affect words. These data provide evidence of a close association between smoking-related and affective cue processing from a cognitive perspective. Potential theoretical and clinical implications for these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suppression of Attentional Bias in PTSD.

Sixty combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder performed an emotional Stroop task under 1 of 4 contextual conditions designed to test theoretical explanations for an attentional bias suppression effect. Results revealed that when the emotional Stroop task was performed under conditions involving a future threat of either watching a combat video or giving a speech, attentional bias was inhibited. There was limited support for the prediction that the suppression effect was strongest when stressor content matched word content on the Stroop. In contrast to participants in the threat conditions, veterans who believed that they would receive additional compensation for speeded color naming or who believed that they would have no other experimental demands were slower when color naming combat-threat words. Potential theoretical explanations of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias is associated with incentive-related physiological and subjective measures.

Drug cue reactivity is theoretically and clinically important. The modified Stroop task has been widely used to assess attention capture by drug cues (attentional bias). Attentional bias to drug cues is assumed to reflect the incentive value of those cues, but this has not been directly tested. The authors examined whether the smoking Stroop effect was associated with facial electromyography (EMG) assessed in real time. Heart-rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) responses were also assessed. Smokers (n = 79) attended up to four experimental sessions. Presession Abstinence state and within-session Smoking were manipulated across sessions. Over all assessments, participants exhibited a robust smoking Stroop effect. Using Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) analyses, the smoking Stroop effect was positively associated with zygomaticus major activity but not with corrugator supercilii activity, HR, or SC. The smoking Stroop effect was also positively associated with self-reported positive outcome expectancies from smoking and with craving. In sum, attentional bias was more strongly associated with appetitive responses (zygomaticus major activity, positive outcome expectancies) than with withdrawal responses (e.g., corrugator supercilii activity) or measures of physiological arousal (e.g., HR, SC). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nicotine primes attention to competing affective stimuli in the context of salient alternatives.

Despite the importance of the subject, the effects of nicotine on the interplay between affect and attentional bias are not clear. This interplay was assessed with a novel design of the Primed Attentional Competition Task (PACT). It included a 200-ms duration emotional priming picture (negative, positive, or neutral) followed by a dual-target picture of two emotional faces side-by-side. A second task included an emotional priming picture followed by a single emotional target picture in a classic affective priming (CAP) task, assessing reaction time to identify the valence. Smokers completed the tasks in a double-blind repeated measures design wearing a nicotine patch on one day and a placebo patch on the other day. Consistent with hypotheses, nicotine enhanced the effectiveness of positive primes to bias first gaze-fixations (FGFs) toward neutral pictures relative to negative pictures and attenuated the effectiveness of negative primes on FGFs toward negative pictures, but did not bias performance in the CAP task where competing target stimuli were not present. These effects of nicotine on affective priming and attentional bias toward competing reinforcers may contribute to smoking motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phobia-related cognitive bias for pictorial and linguistic stimuli.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether anxiety-related cognitive bias for threat is stronger for threatening pictures than for threatening words. Spider-phobic participants (n?=?31 ) and control participants (n?=?33) performed a pictorial and linguistic spider Stroop task. Spider-phobic participants showed a marked bias for threat. However, this bias was similar for pictures and for words, although the spider-phobic group evaluated the pictures as being more aversive. The results suggest that automatic processing of threatening information in people with phobias is triggered in an on-off fashion, independent of subjective threat of the stimuli. This lack of distinction in automatic processing of weak and strong predictors of danger may be fundamental to the irrational nature of anxiety disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing threatening information in posttraumatic stress disorder.

The authors used a modified Stroop task to study how people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) process threatening information. Participants were motor vehicle accident (MVA) survivors with either PTSD (n?=?15), simple phobia of driving (n?=?15), or low anxiety (n?=?15). Participants named colors of 4 types of words: strong threat words (MVA related), mild threat words (MVA related), positive words, and neutral words. Participants with PTSD demonstrated greater interference on strong threat words than those with simple phobia or low anxiety. Contrary to expectation, participants with simple phobia did not display an interference effect. Findings suggest that individuals with PTSD and simple phobia may process threatening information differently. The nature of attentional bias in different anxiety conditions following trauma is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias to pictures of fear-relevant animals in a dot probe task.

Attentional bias to fear-relevant animals was assessed in 69 participants not preselected on self-reported anxiety with the use of a dot probe task showing pictures of snakes, spiders, mushrooms, and flowers. Probes that replaced the fear-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders) were found faster than probes that replaced the non-fear-relevant stimuli, indicating an attentional bias in the entire sample. The bias was not correlated with self-reported state or trait anxiety or with general fearfulness. Participants reporting higher levels of spider fear showed an enhanced bias to spiders, but the bias remained significant in low scorers. The bias to snake pictures was not related to snake fear and was significant in high and low scorers. These results indicate preferential processing of fear-relevant stimuli in an unselected sample. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The emotional Stroop task and psychopathology.

Attentional bias is a central feature of many cognitive theories of psychopathology. One of the most frequent methods of investigating such bias has been an emotional analog of the Stroop task. In this task, participants name the colors in which words are printed, and the words vary in their relevance to each theme of psychopathology. The authors review research showing that patients are often slower to name the color of a word associated with concerns relevant to their clinical condition. They address the causes and mechanisms underlying the phenomenon, focusing on J. D. Cohen, K. Dunbar, and J. L. McClelland's (see record 1990-27437-001) parallel distributed processing model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the word preferences of suicidal versus nonsuicidal college students.

Used a word preference format to investigate reactions to verbal stimuli of 21 suicidal and 21 nonsuicidal university students matched for age and sex. Six words with either aggressive or submissive denotative meanings significantly differentiated the 2 groups. In addition, the word suicide was selected at a higher frequency level by suicidal individuals when compared to their nonsuicidal counterparts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparative study of drug-related attentional bias: Evidence from Iran.

The Addiction-Stroop test has been widely used to investigate the attentional correlates of alcohol and drug abuse; however, the majority of the studies have been conducted with European and American participants. The present study tested whether Iranian drug abusers show higher attentional bias for drug-related stimuli. Participants included drug abusers (N = 53; 100% male), with a clinical history of opium and heroin abuse, who were in a Methadone Maintenance Therapy program. Only nonabusers (N = 71; 71, 54% male) with a history of having never abused of drugs or alcohol participated in the study as controls. All participants completed a computerized Persian version of classic and addiction Stroop tests. The results of a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that drug abusers had a higher attentional bias for drug-related stimuli than nonabusers, after the effects of age and education had been controlled. The results of repeating the MANCOVA (a) limited to men only, and (b) to men and women in the nonabuser sample showed that the observed difference in the drug-related attentional bias of drug-abusers and nonabusers was not an artifact of gender imbalance. Our findings support the idea that drug-related attentional bias is culture-free. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)