Lecture 7 - attention biases: the role of mechanisms

Question 1

what are mechanisms

Answer 1

factors that are responsible for attentional bias
function is to explain why emotionally disturbed people selectively attend to emotional stimuli
help to identify in what person, in what mood, in what situation or following what event is attentional bias shown

Question 2

why is there an emphasis on mechanisms for understanding attentional bias

Answer 2

criticial for identifying targets for intervention
key for developing, testing and refining theoretical frameworks for explaining attentional bias
eg - Beck’s schema theory and attentional bias

Question 3

steps involved in identifying mechanisms

Answer 3

look at convergence of bias manifestation across different paradigms - eg modified stroop, dot probe
develop explanatory frameworks, test and refine them
move from single mediator to interactions of factors

Question 4

why is it difficult to study mechanismsm underpinning attentional bias

Answer 4

different forms of attentional bias - facilitated attention, disengagement difficulties and attentional avoidance
wide range of mechanisms - neural, cognitive, personality
different mechanisms operate at different stages of information processing (automatic vs srategic)
all three factors must be considered and complex interaction

Question 5

name three types of attentional bias

Answer 5

facilitated attention
difficulties in disengagement
attentional avoidance

Question 6

explain facilitated attention

Answer 6

ease with which attention is draw to a stimulus - evidence is mixed but may be due to moderating variables

Question 7

explain difficulties in disengagement

Answer 7

degree to which threat captures attention and imparis switching attention away from threat to another stimulus, alot of evidence from the visual search task - strong evidence for this bias

Question 8

explain attentional avoidance

Answer 8

attention preferentially allocated to locations opposite of the threat, indicating avoidance of threat - observeed using dot probe task and at long stimulu intervals

Question 9

are these processes automatic of strategic?

• threat detection
• attentional avoidance
• attentional disengagement

Answer 9

automatic
strategic
both strategic and automatic

Question 10

how can attentional bias mechanisms explain the dissociation between memory and attentional processes

Answer 10

activation giving rise to attention bias dies away before mnemonic processes begin
type of activation involved in attentional bias different to that involved in explicit mnemonic encoding

Question 11

factors that mediate the mechanisms

Answer 11

threat detection mechanism underpins facilitated attention - neurally centered around the amygdala
attentional control underlies difficulty in disengagement
emotion reglation goals underlie attentional avoidance
attention control and emotion regulation controlled by prefrontal cortex

Question 12

relationship between paradigms ad mechanisms: attnetional bias in anxiety

Answer 12

must have tasks that differentiate between different types of attentional bias
spatial cuing task - assesses both facilitation and disengagement

Question 13

what mechanism is most robust for explaining attneitonal bias in anxiety

Answer 13

threat detection mechanism that operates automatically and contributes to facilitated attention to threat

Question 14

what mechanisms for attentional bias in anxiety have less empirical support

Answer 14

mechanisms accounting for disengagement from threat

mechanisms accounting for avoidance of threat

Question 15

explain cognitive motivational model

Answer 15

vulnerability to anxiety stems from a lower threshold of appraising threat
bias in the direction of attention deployment is less crucial
neutral material is judged as having a higher subjective threat value by high vs low anxious individuals
everyone orients to high threat stimuli as this is functional from an evoluntionary perspective
integrates multiple frameowkrs

Question 16

two key mechanisms of the cognitive motivational model

Answer 16

threat appraisal

goal engagment

Question 17

difference between depression and anxiety according to the cognitive motivational model

Answer 17

threat appraisal - key for anxiety

goal engagment - key for depression

Question 18

why is it important to look at cognitive attentional biases in depression vs anxiety

Answer 18

diagnostic importance
implications for treatment interventions
what mechanism is driving the bias for each disorder

Question 19

how do we study differences in attentional bias in anxiety vs depression

Answer 19

need stdies where depressed and axious individuals do the same tasks
emotional stroop
dot probe task

Question 20

why focus on the dot probe and stroop

Answer 20

tasks used with both depressed and axious samples
allow examination of conscious and non-conscious processing
how does variation in methodology account for differences in findings between groups (eg importance of self-relevance of the stimuli)

Question 21

task irrelevant processes in emotional stroop

Answer 21

emotional stimuli slow colour naming by activating task irrelevant self pre-occupying processes that consime attentional capactiy

Question 22

why do individuals with co-morbid anxiety and depression show patterns different to anxiety

Answer 22

motivational deficits

threat evalutation system vs goal engagement mechanisms

Question 23

when is attentional bias observed in depression

Answer 23

under conditions of elaborative processing of self relevant material
more restricted range of stimuli show attentional bias in depression
longer time durations

Question 24

when is attnetional bias observed in anxiety

Answer 24

observed for a wide range of emotional cues, negative threat words, pictures of angry faces
can occur automatically ath the pre-attentive stage
does not have to involve elaborative processing

Question 25

name 5 brain areas associated with attentional bias in anxiety

Answer 25

amygdala
thalamus
dorsomedial preforntal cortex
ventromedial prefrontal cortex
subgenual anterior cingulate cortex

Question 26

explain brain stuff in attneitonal bias and anxiety

Answer 26

neural correlates of threat realted processing in GAD
heightened reactivity in amygdala
arousal in thalamus
negative appraisal in dorsomedial prefonrtal cortex
reduced activity in the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex and the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex - emotion regulation

Question 27

explain the brain areas associated with attention bias in depression

Answer 27

lateral prefrontal cortex, including the reight inferior frontal gyrus, middle frontal cortex and the supramarginal gyrus
this area is associated with cognitive control
fronto-insular resting state functional connectivity - variability as a function of rumination

Question 28

mechanisms conclusion

Answer 28

mechanisms critical for developing explanatory frameworks for expaining bias and treatment interventions
are very somplex and interactive
are different for depressiona nd anxiety
need to have paradigms that draw on different theoretical perspectives to unravel how mechanisms operate