Cognitive Science/ Cognitive Processes
Clarifying the nature of attentional bias to emotional stimuli among pessimists and optimists
Ellen Nolan, None
Student
Emmanuel College
Boston, Massachusetts
Jadynne Hill, B.A.
Student
Emmanuel College
Boston, Massachusetts
Samantha Moshier, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Emmanuel College
Boston, Massachusetts
Introduction: Individuals with an optimistic attitude recover faster from physical or psychological stressors, are more likely to experience happiness, and are less likely to suffer from depression. Eye tracking studies suggest that dispositional optimism is associated with a tendency to gaze longer at positive stimuli relative to negative stimuli (e.g., Isaacowitz, 2005; Peters et al., 2016). However, the methods used in prior research have not allowed for assessment of whether this reflects biases in attentional engagement (i.e., allocating attention toward a stimulus) or biased disengagement (i.e., moving attention away from a stimulus). The aim of this study was to address this question using a computerized task designed to separately evaluate attentional engagement and disengagement to positive and negative stimuli.
Method: Sixty-four college student participants completed a measure of dispositional optimism and a computerized attentional probe task (Grafton et al., 2016) evaluating attentional engagement and disengagement toward positive and negative emotional words. The task presented stimuli at both short (500 ms) and long (1000 ms) durations, in order to evaluate whether attentional biases (if present) operated in an automatic or controlled manner. We identified a subsample of individuals with high (n=16) and low (n=14) levels of dispositional optimism and compared these groups on indices of attentional engagement and disengagement bias for both short and long duration trials.
Results: There was a between-group difference in disengagement bias; compared to highly optimistic individuals, individuals who were low in optimism moved their attention away from negative words more slowly relative to positive words (t(28) = 2.308, p = .029). This between-group difference was found only for the longer duration trials (1000 ms), suggesting that the bias reflects a controlled process. Indices of attentional engagement bias did not differ between groups (p > .17).
Discussion: High- and low- optimism groups did not differ in the speed with which they allocated attention toward positive and negative stimuli. However, participants low in optimism demonstrated impaired disengagement from negative stimuli compared to those high in optimism. This pattern has previously been documented in patients with depression, but our results raise the possibility that impaired disengagement from negative information may serve as a path through which low trait optimism confers risk of developing depression.