Psychometric properties of threat-related attentional bias in young children using eye-tracking

Eye-tracking measurement of attention bias to social threat among youth: A replication and extension study

Attentional bias to social threat cues has been linked to heightened anxiety and irritability in youth. Yet, inconsistent methodology has limited replication and led to mixed findings. The current study aims to 1) replicate and extend two previous pediatric studies demonstrating a relationship between negative affectivity and attentional bias to social threat and 2) examine the test-retest reliability of an eye-tracking paradigm among a subsample of youth. Attention allocation to negative versus non-negative emotional faces was measured using a free-viewing eye-tracking task among youth (N=185 total, 60% female, M age=13.10 years, SD age=2.77) with three face-pair conditions: happy-angry, neutral-disgust, sad-happy. Replicating procedures of two previous studies, linear mixed-effects models compared attention bias between children with anxiety disorders and healthy controls. Bifactor analysis was used to parse shared versus unique facets of general negative affectivity (i.e., anxiety, irritability), which were then examined in relation to attention bias. Test-retest reliability of the bias-index was estimated among a subsample of youth (N=36). No significant differences in attention allocation or bias emerged between anxiety and healthy control groups. While general negative affectivity across the sample was not associated with attention bias, there was a positive relationship for anxiety and irritability on duration of attention allocation toward negative faces. Test-retest reliability for attention bias was moderate (r=0.50, p<.01). While anxiety-related findings from the two previous studies were not replicated, the relationship between attention bias and facets of negative affect suggests a potential target for treatment. Evidence for test-retest reliability encourages future use of the eye-tracking task for researchers.

Attention allocation to negatively-valenced stimuli in PTSD is associated with reward-related neural pathways

BACKGROUND

In a recent eye-tracking study we found a differential dwell time pattern for negatively-valenced and neutral faces among patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), trauma-exposed healthy control (TEHCs), and healthy control (HC) participants. Here, we explored whether these group differences relate to resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) patterns of brain areas previously linked to both attention processes and PTSD. These encompass the amygdala, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), and nucleus accumbens (NAcc).

METHODS

Ten minutes magnetic resonance imaging rsFC scans were recorded in 17 PTSD patients, 21 TEHCs, and 16 HCs. Participants then completed a free-viewing eye-tracking task assessing attention allocation outside the scanner. Dwell time on negatively-valenced stimuli (DT%) were assessed relative to functional connectivity in the aforementioned seed regions of interest (amygdala, dACC, dlPFC, vlPFC, and NAcc) to whole-brain voxel-wise rsFC.

RESULTS

As previously reported, group differences occurred in attention allocation to negative-valence stimuli, with longer dwell time on negatively valence stimuli in the PTSD and TEHC groups than the HC group. Higher DT% correlated with weaker NAcc-orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) connectivity in patients with PTSD. Conversely, a positive association emerged in the HC group between DT% and NAcc-OFC connectivity.

CONCLUSIONS

While exploratory in nature, present findings may suggest that reward-related brain areas are involved in disengaging attention from negative-valenced stimuli, and possibly in regulating ensuing negative emotions.

Attention allocation in OCD: A systematic review and meta-analysis of eye-tracking-based research

INTRODUCTION

Cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) implicate heightened attention allocation to stimuli related to one's obsessions in the disorder. Recently, to overcome several limitations of reaction time-based measures, eye-tracking methodology has been increasingly used in attentional research.

METHODS

A meta-analysis of studies examining attention allocation towards OCD-related vs. neutral stimuli, using eye-tracking methodology and a group-comparison design, was conducted conforming to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Separate meta-analyses were performed for attentional vigilance (both latency and location of first fixations) and maintenance (total dwell time and total fixation count, conjointly). Each meta-analysis was conducted twice - once including all studies (main analysis) and once only including studies using the free-viewing paradigm (secondary analysis).

RESULTS

The systematic search yielded a total of nine studies. Of those, eight provided the needed data to be included in the meta-analysis. No evidence emerged for vigilance via latency to first fixation. Vigilance reflected via first fixation location emerged in the main analysis, but not in the secondary one. Evidence for attentional maintenance was found only when analyzing free-viewing studies exclusively (the secondary analysis).

LIMITATIONS

To increase the accuracy of the research question, correlational studies were excluded, resulting in a small number of available studies.

CONCLUSIONS

OCD may be characterized by vigilance, but mainly in tasks entailing specific demands and/or goals. Conversely, attentional maintenance may be evident only when using tasks that pose no requirements or demands for participants.

Increased attention allocation to socially threatening faces in social anxiety disorder: A replication study

BACKGROUND

Threat-related attention bias has been implicated in the etiology and maintenance of social anxiety disorder (SAD), with attentional research increasingly using eye-tracking methodology to overcome the poor psychometric properties of response-time-based tasks and measures. Yet, extant eye-tracking research in social anxiety has mostly failed to report on psychometrics and attempts to replicate past results are rare. Therefore, we attempted to replicate a previously published eye-tracking study of gaze patterns in socially anxious and nonanxious participants as they viewed social threatening and neutral faces, while also exploring the psychometric properties of the attentional measures used.

METHODS

Gaze was monitored as participants freely viewed 60 different matrices comprised of eight socially-threatening and eight neutral faces, presented for 6000 ms each. Gaze patterns directed at threat and neutral areas of interest (AOIs) were compared by group. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were also evaluated.

RESULTS

Relative to healthy controls, socially anxious patients dwelled significantly longer on threat faces, replicating prior findings with the same task. Internal consistency of total dwell time on threat and neutral AOIs was high, and two-week test-retest reliability was acceptable.

LIMITATIONS

Test-retest reliability was only examined for the control group, which had a small sample size.

CONCLUSION

Increased dwell time on socially threatening stimuli is a reliable, stable, and generalizable measure of attentional bias in adults with social anxiety.

Attention orientation to pleasantness and depressive symptomatology predict autonomic reactivity

Depression is characterised by attentional bias to emotional information and dysregulated autonomic reactivity. Despite its relevance to understanding depressive mechanisms, the association between attentional bias and autonomic reactivity to emotional information remains poorly characterised. This study compared behavioural and autonomic responses to emotional images in 32 participants in whom subclinical depressive symptomatology was quantified using the Beck Depression Inventory. Pairs of emotional and neutral images (unpleasant-neutral, U-N; pleasant-neutral, P-N; neutral-neutral, N-N) were presented while attentional indices (eye movements) and autonomic activity (skin conductance responses, SCRs; heart rate, HR) were recorded. Results showed that all recorded ocular parameters indicated a preferential orientation and maintenance of attention to emotional images. SCRs were associated with a valence effect on fixation latency: lower fixation latency to pleasant stimuli leads to lower SCRs whereas the opposite was observed for unpleasant stimuli. Finally, stepwise linear regression analysis revealed that latency of fixation to pleasant images and scores of depression predicted SCRs of participants. Thus, our research reveals an association between autonomic reactivity and attentional bias to pleasant information, on the one hand, and depressive symptomatology on the other. Present findings therefore suggest that depressive individuals may benefit from attention training towards pleasant information in association with autonomic biofeedback procedures.