Attentional Bias Modification (ABM) aims to modulate attentional biases, but questions remain about its efficacy and there may be new variants yet to explore. The current study tested effects of a novel version of ABM, predictive ABM (predABM), using visually neutral cues predicting the locations of future threatening and neutral stimuli that had a chance of appearing after a delay. Such effects could also help understand anticipatory attentional biases measured using cued Visual Probe Tasks. One hundred and two participants completed the experiment online. We tested whether training Towards Threat versus Away from Threat contingencies on the predABM would cause subsequent attentional biases towards versus away from threat versus neutral stimuli, respectively. Participants were randomly assigned and compared on attentional bias measured via a post-training Dot-Probe task. A significant difference was found between the attentional bias in the Towards Threat versus Away from Threat group. The training contingencies induced effects on bias in the expected direction, although the bias in each group separately did not reach significance. Stronger effects may require multiple training sessions. Nevertheless, the primary test confirmed the hypothesis, showing that the predABM is a potentially interesting variant of ABM. Theoretically, the results show that automatization may involve the process of selecting the outcome of a cognitive response, rather than a simple stimulus-response association. Training based on contingencies involving predicted stimuli affect subsequent attentional measures and could be of interest in future clinical studies.
Attentional biases are automatic processes that influence the selection of information for further processing (
Some recent studies have raised interesting possibilities potentially relevant to ABM. First, cued Visual Probe Tasks (cVPTs) have been developed to the aim of studying outcome-related attentional biases (
Second, positive effects have been reported of what would usually be considered control conditions of ABM, in which no specific bias was induced but probes had a random relationship with emotional cues (
The goal of the current study was to explore a novel form of ABM hypothesized to avoid this salience side-effect, which simultaneously may help understand the nature of the anticipatory spatial attentional bias. A training version of the cued Visual Probe Task was used, in which the probability of the location of probes relative to the outcome of cues is manipulated. This was termed predictive Attentional Bias Modification (predABM). To test whether this kind of predictive-cue training would affect attentional bias towards or away from actually presented emotional stimuli, a Towards Threat training condition and an Away from Threat training condition were compared using a normal Dot-Probe task post-training. As the delay between emotional cues and probe stimuli in Dot-Probe tasks is known to be potentially time-dependent (
Participants were recruited from a student population and received study credits for completing the study. Participants gave informed consent and the study was approved by the local ethics review board. The study was performed online. One hundred and two participants completed the experiment (88% female, 22 % male; mean age 20,
The following questionnaires were used as the set of covariates to reduce training-unrelated variance on the post-test Dot-Probe task. The aim was to use a range of questionnaires concerning individual differences, which could affect attentional biases involving threat: Anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and aggression. The questionnaire on depression was unfortunately lost due to a technical error. Note that because the between-subject factor of training was randomly assigned it was stochastically independent from the covariates, providing an appropriate situation for the use of analysis of covariance.
The TSQ (
To assess an individual’s disposition to aggressive behavior we used the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (
The short version of the STAI, STAI-6 (
The predABM task was administered to modify attentional processing to threatening stimuli. The faces of 16 characters, each with an angry and a neutral expression, from the BESST (
In both groups, cues consistently predicted the locations of threat and neutral stimuli. They only differed in their relationship to where probe stimuli would appear. In the Towards Threat group, 90% of probes appeared at the location where an angry face was predicted to appear. In the Away from Threat group, 90% of probes appeared at the location where a neutral face was predicted to appear.
For the dot-probe task a subset of 16 faces from the BESST was used, different from the subset used during training. The task consisted of four blocks of 24 trials. Each trial started with a fixation cross (300, 400, or 500 ms) followed by the presentation of an angry and a neutral face, one above the other, for 200 or 1,200 ms, with equal probability. Trials then continued precisely as in the probe trials in the predABM task described above: a probe-distractor pair replaced the cues, to which participants had 800 ms to respond, followed by feedback.
Individuals who chose to participate were guided to the web page for the experiment via a Sona Systems participant pool. They viewed a page with participant information and gave informed consent via a button to continue. The next page briefly repeated the most essential information and gave tips for correct performance of the tasks, for example, turning off phones, maximizing the browser window, and closing other programs and browser tabs. Participants filled in questionnaires and then performed the predABM and Dot-Probe task. Participants were assigned to a training condition at random. In the same session, participants also completed questionnaires and tasks unrelated to the current study.
First, within-subject repeated measures ANOVAs were performed per training group to determine whether each training condition had the expected effects on behavior during training. For each training condition (Towards Threat condition and Away from Threat) it was tested whether the respective bias was induced during the training (within-subject factors Probe Location and CSI), although of course these tests do not indicate whether such biases involved the predicted outcome as opposed to the initially visually neutral cues. Probe Location refers to whether the probe appeared at the location of the Threat or Neutral cue. Dependent variables were median RT (the median was used to reduce the impact of outliers, without needing to specify an arbitrary cut-off for outliers as would be necessary with the mean) and mean accuracy, calculated for all probe trials. The questionnaire data (i.e., age, sex, Buss-Perry subscale scores, TSQ, and STAI-6) were included as covariates.
Second, and most essentially, effects of the attentional manipulation on the Dot-Probe task were tested using mixed design ANCOVAs, with within-subject factors Probe Location (Neutral, Threat) and CSI (200 ms, 1,200 ms) and between-subject factor Training condition. The questionnaire scores were included as covariates. It was tested whether the training conditions (Toward Threat vs. Away from Threat) induced reversed attentional biases on the Dot-Probe task. Dependent variables were median reaction time and mean accuracy.
Score | Away from Threat | Towards Threat |
---|---|---|
Sex | 78% | 92% |
Age | 19.8 (2.06) | 19.5 (1.44) |
BP—Physical Aggression | 19.6 (5.66) | 16.6 (4.99) |
BP—Verbal Aggression | 17.4 (3.76) | 15.6 (2.82) |
BP—Anger | 16.9 (5.45) | 16.9 (6.38) |
BP—Hostility | 20.1 (8.15) | 17.9 (8.1) |
Trauma screening questionnaire | 3.02 (2.94) | 3.04 (2.8) |
STAI, pre-training | -4.11 (2.93) | -3.83 (3.3) |
STAI, post-training | -3.15 (3.11) | -3.21 (3.05) |
Probe Location | CSI | Away From Threat | Towards Threat |
---|---|---|---|
Neutral | 200 ms | 528 (51) | 536 (77) |
Neutral | 1,200 ms | 558 (62) | 553 (58) |
Angry | 200 ms | 537 (69) | 521 (52) |
Angry | 1,200 ms | 573 (75) | 551 (58) |
Neutral | 200 ms | 0.97 (0.059) | 0.96 (0.066) |
Neutral | 1,200 ms | 0.96 (0.078) | 0.97 (0.045) |
Angry | 200 ms | 0.97 (0.042) | 0.98 (0.017) |
Angry | 1,200 ms | 0.97 (0.049) | 0.98 (0.016) |
Descriptive statistics for the Dot-Probe Task are shown in
Probe Location | CSI | Away From Threat | Towards Threat |
---|---|---|---|
Neutral | 200 ms | 505 (56) | 502 (55) |
Neutral | 1,200 ms | 516 (53) | 511 (50) |
Angry | 200 ms | 504 (58) | 497 (53) |
Angry | 1,200 ms | 523 (56) | 511 (52) |
Neutral | 200 ms | 0.96 (0.051) | 0.95 (0.047) |
Neutral | 1,200 ms | 0.97 (0.052) | 0.96 (0.042) |
Angry | 200 ms | 0.96 (0.048) | 0.97 (0.045) |
Angry | 1,200 ms | 0.97 (0.046) | 0.97 (0.04) |
On RT, the hypothesized effect was found of Group × Probe Location,
The Towards Threat group had a bias towards threat relative to the Away from Threat group. The direction of the effect of Probe Location was reversed as expected between the groups, with shorter RTs on the Neutral than on the Threat location in the Away from Threat group, and shorter RTs on the Threat than on the Neutral location in the Towards Threat group. We do note that the magnitudes of the biases were small however, and the main effect of Probe Location did not reach significance in either group separately, despite the significant Group × Probe Location interaction. Further, an effect of CSI was found,
The aim of the current study was to provide a first test of the effects of predABM, a novel version of ABM using predictive cues. Rather than being trained to direct attention towards or away from threatening stimuli, participants were trained to direct attention towards or away from locations based on cues predicting where a threatening stimulus could appear. Thus, the training did not involve a direct stimulus-response association between stimuli in the threat category and attentional shifting, a feature of usual training tasks that could result in unexpected effects involving salience. The question was whether training using predictive cues would be able to affect stimulus-evoked attentional bias.
Performance data during training blocks showed that participants responded to the outcome-based task contingencies as expected. Responses were faster to probes appearing at the trained location. Note that this could reflect either an association involving the specific predictive cues or an association involving the stimulus category predicted by the cues—initial cVPT studies (
The results thus provide first support for the potential use of predABM. Although concern for salience side-effects in ABM, due to the informativeness of emotional cues, is as yet a recent development, the predABM provides a method that appears to be able to address this potential problem. However, we note that the potential training value of using an anticipatory attentional bias based on upcoming emotional stimuli, rather than responses to already-presented emotional stimuli, does not only depend on the salience side-effect. Anticipatory or preparatory processes related to emotional stimuli could be an interesting target for training in themselves, as this may have different effects from ABM involving stimulus-evoked processes. Further, a feature of predictive cues is that a wide range of possible stimuli can be associated with single conditioned cue. An interesting direction for future research is whether this may improve generalization to other stimuli, since attention is directed towards an abstract category rather than a specific set of stimuli.
A limitation of the current study is that only a single session was used, while effects of multiple sessions are likely most relevant for potential clinical applications and could provide larger effect sizes. However, the current results provide a proof-of-principle that the outcome-focused cued training task was able to change attentional processes related to the predicted stimulus category. A further limitation is that the population involved a sample of students. Patient groups are clearly an important target population, and it remains to be determined whether non-student samples respond to the training contingencies in the same way. A concern with training methods, especially for future use in clinical populations, is their impact on patients. The current study was also limited in its use of computer-generated angry faces as emotional stimuli: It cannot be assumed that the effects will generalize to other stimulus categories. Different results might be obtained in future research with, for example, stimuli representing physical threat, or verbal stimuli designed to evoke shame or guilt. Concerning the design, only a post-training assessment task for attentional bias was used, similarly to analyses involving post-training effects in previous studies (e.g.,
In conclusion, training to shift attention based on the expected stimulus-locations induces changes in attentional biases. The use of predictive cues in training may open interesting directions for further study.
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The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.