Looking happy: The experimental manipulation of a positive visual attention bias.

Abstract

Individuals with a positive visual attention bias may use their gaze to regulate their emotions while under stress. The current study experimentally trained differential biases in participants' (N = 55) attention toward positive or neutral information. In each training trial, one positive and one neutral word were presented and then a visual target appeared consistently in the location of the positive or neutral words. Participants were instructed to make a simple perceptual discrimination response to the target. Immediately before and after attentional training, participants were exposed to a stress task consisting of viewing a series of extremely negative images while having their eyes tracked. Visual fixation time to negative images, assessed with an eye tracker, served as an indicator of using gaze to successfully regulate emotion. Those participants experimentally trained to selectively attend to affectively positive information looked significantly less at the negative images in the visual stress task following the attentional training, thus demonstrating a learned aversion to negative stimuli. Participants trained toward neutral information did not show this biased gaze pattern.

Attentional biases toward emotional images in the different episodes of bipolar disorder: An eye-tracking study

“…We believe that this state/trait dissociation allows for a better characterization of this episodic and chronic mental disorder. From a clinical perspective, it will be important to determine the following in future research (i) whether the training of the biases toward mood-relevant information may constitute a novel treatment for symptomatic BD episodes (see Wadlinger and Isaacowitz, 2008, for evidence in patients with MDD) and (ii) whether attentional biases toward threatening information constitute a marker of vulnerability for BD, and if so, what preventive strategies may be employed, particularly in high-risk relatives.…”

Parents’ Perceptions of Risk and the Influence on Children’s Everyday Activities

“…Fredrickson and colleagues (Fredrickson, et al, 2008) conducted a randomized longitudinal field experiment using an intervention called Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM), a practice used to develop warm and caring feelings for oneself and others (Salzberg, 2004 Rowe, Hirsh, & Anderson, 2007), with eye-tracking (Wadlinger & Isaacowitz, 2008) and with brain-imaging studies (Schmitz, De Rosa, & Anderson, 2009;Soto et al, 2009). …”

Attentional bias modification based on visual probe task: methodological issues, results and clinical relevance

“…Two of these studies manipulated the attend group to threat or negative stimuli 39,40 and four, to positive stimuli. [41][42][43][44] The first two found that the treated groups increased AB for threat or negative stimuli when compared with the control groups. They also found that the effects correlated with higher anxiety scores 39 and were potentiated by explicit instructions before training.…”

“…Moreover, they had a negative correlation with anxiety, 42 stress reactivity, 43 fewer negative thought intrusions in a worry test 45 and generalization to other measures of stress. 44 Of the three studies that used only avoid groups, one did not conduct a post test because it did not find AB for threat at baseline, 46 whereas the other two found a reduction in the post-training AB, with effects generalized to other scales and self-reported symptoms of anxiety, worrying and depression. 45,47 However, the two studies 48,49 that used avoid, attend and control group found different results.…”

“…62,65 Similar encouraging results were found in two other recent studies. 63,64 In the first, groups were trained either to attend to healthy food or to attend to unhealthy food, and 33 Avoid (-)/control Yes No Amir et al 6 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes Hazen et al 26 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes Heeren et al 27 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes See et al 28 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes Heeren et al 29 Avoid (-)/control Yes No MacLeod et al 7 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes Browning et al 19 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes MacLeod et al 34 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes Van Bockstaele et al 35 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes No Van Bockstaele et al 36 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes No Eldar et al 37 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Partly No O'Toole et al 38 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Partly No Heeren et al 39 Attend (-)/control Yes Yes Krebs et al 40 Attend (-)/control Yes Yes Hayes et al 41 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Li et al 42 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Taylor et al 43 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Wadlinger et al 44 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Cowart et al 46 Avoid (-) Not applicable Not applicable Amir et al 45 Avoid (-) Yes Yes Brosan et al 47 Avoid (-) Yes Yes Heeren et al 48 Avoid (-)/attend (+)/control Yes Yes Klumpp et al 49 Avoid (-)/attend (+)/control No No Boettcher et al 50 Attend ( 51 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes Schoenmakers et al 10 Avoid (-)/control Yes No Schoenmakers et al 53 Avoid (-)/control Yes Partly Kerst et al 54 Avoid (-)/control Yes Partly Lopes et al 55 Avoid (-)/control Yes No McHugh et al 52 Avoid (-)/control No No Fie...…”