Attentional bias in anxiety and depression: The impact of emotional and non-emotional distracting information

Lichtenstein-Vidne, L.; Okon-Singer, H.; Cohen, N.; Todder, D.; Aue, T.; Nemets, B.; Henik, A. (2017). Attentional bias in anxiety and depression: The impact of emotional and non-emotional distracting information. Biological psychology, 122, pp. 4-12. Elsevier 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.07.012

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Both anxiety and major depression disorder (MDD) were reported to involve a maladaptive selective attention mechanism, associated with bias toward negative stimuli. Previous studies investigated attentional bias using distractors that required processing as part of task settings, and therefore, in our view, these distractors should be regarded as task-relevant. Here, we applied a unique task that used peripheral distractors that presented emotional and spatial information simultaneously. Notably, the emotional information was not associated in any way to the task, and thus was task-irrelevant. The spatial information, however, was task-relevant as it corresponded with task instructions. Corroborating previous findings, anxious patients showed attentional bias toward negative information. MDD patients showed no indication of this bias. Spatial information influenced all groups similarly. These results indicate that anxiety, but not MDD, is associated with an inherent negative information bias, further illustrating that the two closely related disorders are characterized by different processing patterns.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Psychological and Behavioral Health

UniBE Contributor:

Aue, Tatjana

Subjects:

100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

0301-0511

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Tatjana Aue Seil

Date Deposited:

10 Aug 2017 16:22

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:04

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.07.012

PubMed ID:

27422409

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.98062

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/98062

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