Attentional Bias

Attentional Bias refers to how a person’s perception is affected by selective factors In their attention

Three voluntarily moving stimuli had two empty spaces, while the controlled stimulus had one empty space. If the choice of attention is biased towards controlled stimuli, the response time should be inversely proportional to the participant’s degree of control over the target stimulus. From these results, it can be seen that healthy volunteers, therefore, showed a bias in maintaining attention towards averting stimuli in the first 1000 ms of exposure, and not in the last 1000 ms of exposure. Thus, under these conditions, attention chose controlled and uncontrolled stimuli at approximately the same speed. [Sources: 2, 8]

Finally, in a state of 100%, the target stimulus continually follows the keystroke, creating a strong bias in the choice of attention against it, resulting in faster response times. Under 0% control, the stimulus never moved in the direction of keystroke by the participants, and therefore attentional selection was biased towards the other three stimuli, which actually moved in the direction of keystroke 50% of the time. Under 40% and 60% conditions, the target stimulus was as likely to move in the direction of the keystroke as the uncontrolled stimulus. [Sources: 8]

According to this model, people with high levels of anxiety are more likely to target adverse stimuli, while people with low levels of anxiety may tend to divert attention away from those stimuli. Based on this, we hypothesize that a shift in attention to threat and, in particular, a deficit in withdrawal from interaction will be associated with better results than a shift in attention away from the threat or lack of bias, since these biases can influence attention to the threat or not. characteristics of the stimulus. We also expect that attention to threat and, in particular, deficits in disengagement from threat will not outweigh any bias, as narrowing of attention (Eysenck et al., 2007) and a reduction in context coding can occur in people with whom they interact more. with terrible irritants during exposure sessions. [Sources: 2, 3]

Thus, attentional bias can lead to more active interactions with the threat and increase the likelihood that a person may know that fear-inducing stimuli or their fear-inducing characteristics do not necessarily predict the occurrence of something repulsive. Thus, elucidating the phenomenological characteristics of attention-threatening bias may provide information for researchers studying the factors that modulate the effect of attention-related bias. Subsequent research may establish whether anxiety and other features of attentional bias are causing anxiety or whether a causal relationship between attentional bias and anxiety is specific to the characteristic of attention relief. [Sources: 3, 7]

Attention bias can pose particular problems for people with anxiety disorders, as they can focus their attention on stimuli that seem threatening and ignore information that can calm their fears. Attention bias means that a person selectively works with a certain category or categories of stimuli in the environment, trying to ignore, ignore, or ignore other types of stimuli. [Sources: 0, 1]

For example, a person may selectively pay attention to food stimuli (especially foods that seem particularly tasty). Sexual stimuli can be especially distracting for the other person; fashion-related stimuli can attract the attention of another person. Most relevant to this chapter is that some people are distracted by addictive signals. In any case, when a person has a goal to consume alcohol, he selectively affects the stimuli in the environment that are associated with the production and consumption of alcohol. [Sources: 1]

This feature suggests that after attention has been paid to one threatening stimulus, it will be difficult to divert attention to another stimulus. A third component of attention bias involves threat avoidance, in which the person secretly filters out threats or thoughts from attentional choices and openly avoids dealing with them if they do appear (Hofmann et al., 2012). Attention bias towards negative stimuli occurs after initial focusing of attention, then temporarily intensifies with increasing sign anxiety and appears to last longer only in individuals with high anxiety, while people with low signs of anxiety instead show a bias in keeping attention away from negative images in a later period. stages of processing. In fact, negative information seems to hold attention longer than a neutral stimulus once recorded. [Sources: 2, 3, 7]

Thus, overall, the results support the attention maintenance hypothesis, 34 which postulates, in contrast to the avoidance-vigilance hypothesis, 26 that there is no relief in focusing on threat-related stimuli that maintain attention after detection 33. For example, Mogg and Bradley (2005) investigated the shift in attention to threat as a function of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) versus depression, focusing on the duration of stimulus presentation. Second, the review will focus on threat attention bias in relation to anxiety rather than other types of stimuli that are also associated with attention bias (eg, pain, addiction, depression, or associated cues. To food). In the following sections: (a) we briefly review this study, (b) we describe how dual process models help explain decisions about whether to use an addictive substance, (c) we discuss how different brain loci are involved in distorting attention. … and other types of cue reactivity, and (d) suggest how the results of neurocognitive research can be applied to cognitive learning and future research. [Sources: 1, 2, 7]

There are many evolutionary and cognitive explanations for why certain things continue to distort our attention. Similarly, some psychologists explain how we process different stimuli at different levels of attention, which affects our ability to process multiple stimuli at the same time. [Sources: 6, 9]

The researchers found that people with eating disorders tend to pay more attention to food cues, while people with drug addiction tend to be hypersensitive to drug cues. For people trying to recover from an eating disorder or addiction, this tendency to pay attention to some cues and exclude others can make recovery much more difficult. By working to expand your focus and minimize unnecessary distractions that will use up your mental resources, you can work to overcome this bias. [Sources: 6, 10]

These biases can affect the information you view, your memory of past decisions, and the sources you trust when looking for options. You need to make fair and rational decisions about important things. In your life, like everyone on earth, you have developed some subtle cognitive biases. [Sources: 0]

When psychologists selectively interpret data or ignore unfavorable data to obtain results that support their original hypotheses, this form of bias usually permeates the research field itself. Confirm the deviation. Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to interpret new information as a confirmation of pre-existing beliefs and opinions. Real-world examples Since the Watson experiment in 1960, real examples of confirmation bias have attracted attention. For example, people who are depressed tend to have negative stereotypes about themselves and the world11 and tend to focus on negative information rather than positive information. 12 On the contrary, people who are not depressed tend to be positive. [Sources: 6, 9]

First, the response times are exceptionally long compared to the complexity of the task, suggesting that they may not be diagnostic for when the participants found the research objective. This happens when a person does not notice a stimulus that is in full view of everyone, because his attention is directed to another place. [Sources: 6, 8]

— Slimane Zouggari

 

 

##### Sources #####

[0]: https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/cognitive-bias

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/attentional-bias

[2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68490-5

[3]: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00968/full

[4]: https://lesley.edu/article/what-the-stroop-effect-reveals-about-our-minds

[5]: https://www.kirtanleader.com/blog/reduce-attentional-biases-with-enneagram

[6]: https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-bias.html

[7]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2901130/

[8]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13414-020-02004-3

[9]: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/attentional-bias/

[10]: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-an-attentional-bias-2795027