The Time-Course for the Capture and Hold of Visuospatial Attention by Fearful and Happy Faces

Torrence, Robert D.; Wylie, Erin; Carlson, Joshua M.

doi:10.1007/s10919-016-0247-7

Cited by 39 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…With respect to SOAs, a recent meta-analysis of facial Dot Probe Paradigms with socially anxious participants suggested that they correlate negatively with RT biases such that with an asynchrony of 500 ms attentional biases can barely be revealed (Bantin, Stevens, Gerlach, & Hermann, 2016). Torrence, Wylie, and Carlson (2017) even found a threshold as low as 300 ms. Mechanistically, the moderating influence of SOA on attentional biases may be caused by cycles of attentional engagement and disengagement between both distractors, with any trial-level reaction time mapping to the current attentional state right before target onset. For larger SOAs, several cycles may have already occurred prior to the revelation of the probe such that the current state of vigilance to or avoidance of threat is best described by a coin flip, rendering mean RT differences as not diagnostic for attentional biases.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional bias modification in social anxiety: Effects on the N2pc component

Reutter

Hewig

Wieser

et al. 2019

Behaviour Research and Therapy

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A B S T R A C TSeveral meta-analyses to date have confirmed the efficacy of attentional bias modification (ABM) in shifting reaction times away from threatening stimuli, reducing anxiety symptoms, and buffering against stressor vulnerability. The reliability of reaction time differences, however, has been found to show unacceptable psychometric properties. In this study, we tested the impact of an extensive Dot-Probe ABM procedure, consisting of close to 7000 trials, concurrently with behavioral and electrophysiological measures within a large sample of over 100 highly socially anxious participants. Results indicated that the N2pc component demonstrates superior internal consistency and more statistical power in detecting attentional biases and their modification than reaction time (RT) differences. RTs were neither indicative of an attentional bias before ABM nor of a modification over time. In contrast, the N2pc indexed both an initial attentional preference for threatening stimuli and an alteration of this relationship after training. Outcomes were not specific for attentional training away from threat but also occurred in the no-contingency control procedure, casting doubt on the theoretic underpinnings of ABM. Electrophysiological measures are an important complement to the ABM literature and should be further utilized to assess attentional biases with excellent reliability.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional bias modification in social anxiety: Effects on the N2pc component

Reutter

Hewig

Wieser

et al. 2019

Behaviour Research and Therapy

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“…Research using behavioral data has indicated that fearful faces capture visuospatial attention early, whereas happy faces capture attention later (Torrence et al, ). Using early and late N2pc, similar results were found in regard to angry and happy facial expressions (Holmes et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another possibility for these inconsistencies could be methodological. Torrence, Wylie, and Carlson () suggested that using various SOAs can cause different results in RT data. The researchers used fearful versus neutral facial expression in two different timing conditions, and happy versus neutral facial expressions in another condition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Event‐related potentials of attentional bias toward faces in the dot‐probe task: A systematic review

Torrence

Troup

2017

Psychophysiology

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The dot-probe task is a common task to assess attentional bias toward different stimuli and how groups differ (e.g., attentional bias in anxiety disorders). However, measuring reaction time has been suggested to be unreliable. Neuroimaging methods such as fMRI were shown to be more reliable in assessing attentional bias, but fMRI has poor temporal resolution and therefore cannot assess timing of attention. ERPs have been used to examine the time course of attentional bias. Although ERP research may be more reliable than reaction time, there have been inconsistencies in the literature. This review systematically searched for articles that used the dot-probe task with facial expressions and measured neural correlates with ERP. We found that some of the inconsistencies might be the cause of methodological differences (e.g., timing of stimuli), differences in emotional expression, and/or sample differences (e.g., sex, age, etc.). Suggestions on how future research could address the issues presented in this review were discussed.

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“…Studies dealing with spatial cueing tasks have demonstrated that facilitated attention towards threat is moderated by stimulus onset time and threat intensity (Carlson, Fee, & Reinke, 2009;Cisler & Koster, 2010;Koster, Crombez, Verschuere, Van Damme, & Wiersema, 2006;Torrence, Wylie, & Carlson, 2017). Higher levels of threat and shorter cue-target temporal interval, that is onset times, evoke stronger effects.…”

Section: Hindering and Facilitating Effects Of Threatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling the facilitating and hindering effects of threat‐related stimuli – A visual search study

Zsidó

Matuz

Inhóf

et al. 2019

British J of Psychology

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Although large body of research has demonstrated the attention-grabbing nature of threat-related stimuli, threat could also facilitate attentional processes. Previous studies suggest a linear relationship between the facilitating effect of the arousal level conveyed by threat and performance on visual search tasks. Due to the temporal competition bias favouring stimuli with higher arousal level, this could be more pronounced for shorter onset times. Here, through two experiments we aimed to disentangle the two effects by using a visual search paradigm that allowed us to separate the emotional stimuli and the cognitive task. We manipulated stimulus onset time and threat intensity. Participants saw neutral and threatening pictures as priming stimuli, and then, they had to find numbers in ascending order in a matrix array. We measured the reaction time for finding the first number, and search time for finding all the numbers. Our results showed that when the priming stimulus is presented, longer threatening pictures produced longer reaction times compared to neutral ones, which was reversed with increase in arousal. We did not find any significant effects for the shorter onset time. Further theoretical and methodological implications are discussed. Relevance and background of the study The study of attentional biases for threat has been a major theme in the research on the aetiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders (McNally, 2018). A large body of this research area demonstrated that threatening stimuli have a highlighted role in visual processing (

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The Time-Course for the Capture and Hold of Visuospatial Attention by Fearful and Happy Faces

Cited by 39 publications

References 56 publications

Attentional bias modification in social anxiety: Effects on the N2pc component

Attentional bias modification in social anxiety: Effects on the N2pc component

Event‐related potentials of attentional bias toward faces in the dot‐probe task: A systematic review

Disentangling the facilitating and hindering effects of threat‐related stimuli – A visual search study

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