Does age have an effect on attention bias, due to dysphoric stimuli?
-
1
Department of Psychological Science, School of Health and Human Sciences, Southern Cross University, Australia
Aim: Previous research into anxiety suggests that anxious individuals readily allocate and maintain their attention towards threatening stimuli. However, similar studies conducted on participants with dysphoria are inconsistent, likely as a result of the varying methodologies used. The current preferred method of assessment in affect related attention bias is eye-tracking, with the ability to continuously measure the multiple components of attention bias over a single trial. The purpose of the current study is to compare attention bias to dysphoric stimuli in a non-clinical sample of individuals with either positive or negative affect, using eye-tracking technology with older and younger age groups. Method: 36 participants were asked to complete DASS.21 to measure affect, prior to an eye-tracking task. Participants viewed pairings of facial expressions, while having their eye movements tracked for a period of 2000Ms. Pairings were limited to happy versus neutral and sad versus neutral. Attention bias was determined by participants’ initial fixation directed towards dysphoric stimuli, as well as fixation duration. The results were assessed using two 2-way age x DASS between subjects ANOVAs. Results: There was no significant main effect of either age or DASS, nor a significant interaction, for either direction or duration bias. However, there was a tendency for younger individuals to have an increased fixation time on dysphoric stimuli, where older individuals did not. This suggests younger individuals who score highly on the DASS.21 have difficulty disengaging from dysphoric stimuli.
Keywords:
Affect,
Eye-tracking,
Dysphoria,
Attention bias,
depression maintenance
Conference:
15th Annual Psychology Honours Research Conference , Coffs Harbour, Australia, 4 Oct - 5 Oct, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Research
Topic:
Abstract for 15th Annual Psychology Honours Research Conference
Citation:
Beasley
G and
Bowling
A
(2019). Does age have an effect on attention bias, due to dysphoric stimuli?.
Front. Psychol.
Conference Abstract:
15th Annual Psychology Honours Research Conference .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2018.74.00011
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
18 Sep 2018;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Miss. Grace Beasley, Department of Psychological Science, School of Health and Human Sciences, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, Australia, g.beasley.10@student.scu.edu.au
Dr. Alison Bowling, Department of Psychological Science, School of Health and Human Sciences, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, Australia, alison.bowling@scu.edu.au