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Spalding DM, Hart R, Henderson R, Nicholls LAB. Age moderates associations between dementia worry and subjective cognition. Cogn Emot 2024:1-19. [PMID: 38973175 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2371095] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 06/17/2024] [Indexed: 07/09/2024]
Abstract
The present study assessed whether dementia worry is associated with adults' subjective cognitive difficulties, and whether any associations are moderated by age. Participants were 477 adults aged 18-90 years. They completed standard, subjective measures of dementia worry and everyday cognitive difficulties (i.e. attention, language, verbal and visual-spatial memory, and visual-perceptual ability). Moderated regression analyses included dementia worry as a predictor of specific cognitive difficulties, and age as a moderator. Covariates included gender, trait cognitive and somatic anxiety, general aging-related anxiety, depression, stress, mental health treatment status, and health status. Greater overall dementia worry, and specifically more frequent dementia worry, were both associated with greater attentional difficulty in middle-aged and older adults, but not in young adults. Cognitions about developing dementia in reaction to memory lapses were also associated with greater cognitive difficulties across the adult lifespan for multiple cognitive domains. Results highlight a robust relationship between dementia worry and subjective attentional difficulties, especially in middle-aged and older adults. Worry frequency is also more influential with adult aging. A cognitive or meta-cognitive mechanism may underlie subjective cognitive concerns across the adult lifespan.
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Affiliation(s)
- David M Spalding
- Department of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
| | - Rebecca Hart
- Department of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
| | - Robyn Henderson
- Department of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
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Horton AB, Pring AM, Rudaizky D, Clarke PJF. The relationship between worry and academic performance: examining the moderating role of attention control. ANXIETY, STRESS, AND COPING 2024:1-16. [PMID: 38299451 DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2024.2308673] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2023] [Accepted: 01/16/2024] [Indexed: 02/02/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Worry is frequently associated with reduced cognitive performance, through consumption of attention control resources. Assessing attention control during acute worry may better reflect cognitive performance in real-world scenarios. This study examined whether attention control (assessed at rest and under acute worry) moderates the relationship between worry and academic performance. METHODS Worry (Penn State Worry Questionnaire) and academic performance (examination grades) were assessed in 87 undergraduates, with attention control (antisaccade performance) measured at baseline and following worry induction. RESULTS When assessed at rest, attention control did not moderate the relationship between trait worry and academic performance. However, under acute worry, attention control significantly moderated the relationship between worry and academic performance (p = .05, f2 = 0.14), such that at low levels of attention control under worry, higher trait worry was significantly associated with lower academic performance. At high levels of attention control under worry, however, the relationship between trait worry and academic performance was not significant. CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that worry may shape performance according to attention control levels, with attention control's moderating role being more pronounced under conditions of acute worry. These results provide preliminary evidence that attention control assessed under worry may better predict real-world performance, compared to assessment at rest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alannah B Horton
- School of Population Health, Discipline of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth', Australia
| | - Annelise M Pring
- School of Population Health, Discipline of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth', Australia
| | - Daniel Rudaizky
- School of Population Health, Discipline of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth', Australia
| | - Patrick J F Clarke
- School of Population Health, Discipline of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth', Australia
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Kennedy BL, Camara AM, Tran DMD. You eye what you eat: BMI, consumption patterns, and dieting status predict temporal attentional bias to food-associated images. Appetite 2024; 192:107095. [PMID: 37890529 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.107095] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Revised: 10/13/2023] [Accepted: 10/22/2023] [Indexed: 10/29/2023]
Abstract
People know that overconsumption of high-fat high-sugar (HFHS) foods have negative consequences for physical and cognitive wellbeing but continue to consume these foods in excess, leading to recent proposals to model obesity as an addiction disorder. The current experiment tested, in a large undergraduate sample (N = 306), the hypothesis that obesity and overconsumption is linked with an oversensitivity to rewards that drives attentional biases towards foods and food-associated cues. Using a modified emotion-induced blindness task with food-related distractors, we examined the extent to which attentional biases to images of HFHS foods were accounted for by BMI, HFHS food intake, self-reported hunger, time since last meal, diet status, food preferences, and attentional control. We also examined whether the same individual differences predicted attentional priority to cues that have a learned association with HFHS foods (i.e., images of food logos). Contrary to our predictions, higher BMI predicted less attentional priority for images of food and food logos. At the same time, increased consumption of HFHS foods predicted increased attentional priority for food images, whereas dieting predicted increased attentional priority for food logo images. Our results suggest that different people may preferentially attend to food versus food logo imagery based on their relationships with food. More broadly, our results support the theoretical perspective that attentional biases to food-associated stimuli can be affected by various competing, state-related factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Briana L Kennedy
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
| | - Andrew M Camara
- School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia
| | - Dominic M D Tran
- School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.
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Wauters A, Van Ryckeghem DML, Noel M, Rheel E, Vervoort T. The Influence of Children's Pain-Related Attention Shifting Ability and Pain Catastrophizing Upon Negatively Biased Pain Memories in Healthy School Children. THE JOURNAL OF PAIN 2023; 24:2140-2152. [PMID: 37385420 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2023.06.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2022] [Revised: 05/23/2023] [Accepted: 06/08/2023] [Indexed: 07/01/2023]
Abstract
The current study investigated the influence of children's ability to flexibly shift attention toward and away from pain information on the development of negatively biased pain memories, thereby employing a direct measure of attention control reliant on behavioral responses in the context of pain (ie, an attention switching task). The direct influence of children's attention-shifting ability and pain catastrophizing as well as the moderating role of this shifting ability in the relationship between pain catastrophizing and the development of negatively biased pain memories was examined. Healthy school children (N = 41; 9-15 years old) received painful heat stimuli and completed measures of state and trait pain catastrophizing. They then performed an attention-switching task wherein they had to shift attention between personally relevant pain-related and neutral cues. Two weeks after the painful task, children's pain-related memories were elicited via telephone. Findings indicated that children's reduced ability to disengage attention away from pain information predicted more fear memory bias 2 weeks later. Children's pain-related attention-shifting ability did not moderate the relationship between children's pain catastrophizing and negatively biased pain memories. Findings highlight the contribution of children's attention control skills in the development of negatively biased pain memories. PERSPECTIVE: Results of the current study indicate that children with a reduced ability to shift attention away from pain information are at risk for developing negatively biased pain memories. Findings can inform interventions to minimize the development of these maladaptive negatively biased pain memories by targeting pain-relevant attention control skills in children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aline Wauters
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Dimitri M L Van Ryckeghem
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg; Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands
| | - Melanie Noel
- Department of Psychology, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Emma Rheel
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; Pain in Motion research group (PAIN), Department of Physiotherapy, Human Physiology and Anatomy, Faculty of Physical Education & Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Tine Vervoort
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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Mendez-Encinas D, Sujar A, Bayona S, Delgado-Gomez D. Attention and impulsivity assessment using virtual reality games. Sci Rep 2023; 13:13689. [PMID: 37608015 PMCID: PMC10444747 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-40455-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2023] [Accepted: 08/10/2023] [Indexed: 08/24/2023] Open
Abstract
The assessment of cognitive functions is mainly based on standardized neuropsychological tests, widely used in various fields such as personnel recruitment, education, or health. This paper presents a virtual reality game that allows collecting continuous measurements of both the performance and behaviour of the subject in an immersive, controllable, and naturalistic experience. The application registers variables related to the user's eye movements through the use of virtual reality goggles, as well as variables of the game performance. We study how virtual reality can provide data to help predict scores on the Attention Control Scale Test and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. We design the application and test it with a pilot group. We build a random forest regressor model to predict the attention and impulsivity scales' total score. When evaluating the performance of the model, we obtain a positive correlation with attention (0.434) and with impulsivity (0.382). In addition, our model identified that the most significant variables are the time spent looking at the target or at distractors, the eye movements variability, the number of blinks and the pupil dilation in both attention and impulsivity. Our results are consistent with previous results in the literature showing that it is possible to use data collected in virtual reality to predict the degree of attention and impulsivity.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Aaron Sujar
- Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles, Spain.
| | - Sofia Bayona
- Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles, Spain
| | - David Delgado-Gomez
- Departamento de Estádistica, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Leganes, Spain
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Van Bockstaele B, Greenwell-Barnden J, Todd J, Clarke PJ, MacLeod C, Notebaert L. The role of performance beliefs in the difference between self-report and behavioural measures of attentional control and their relationship with anxiety. PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2022.112047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
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Jiang J, Zhu Y, Rodriguez MA, Wen X, Qian M. Social anxiety does not impair attention inhibition: An emotion anti-saccade task. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry 2022; 77:101776. [PMID: 36113912 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2022.101776] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2021] [Revised: 06/19/2022] [Accepted: 08/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Attention avoidance and attention vigilance are two typical attentional biases in individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Attention inhibition is a type of attention control, which may be the key factor affecting attention vigilance and attention avoidance. However, previous studies have not examined the difference between the attention inhibition in individuals with SAD and healthy controls. METHODS To further explore this question, the current study used the single anti-saccade task with emotional facial stimuli to assess attention inhibition in 27 individuals with SAD and 22 healthy controls. RESULTS Regardless of the emotional valence of the facial stimuli, error rates in the social anxiety group were lower than that of the healthy control group, but there was no significant group difference in the saccade latency. LIMITATIONS This research only examined the attentional inhibition process highly related to attention avoidance and attention vigilance. Future research may benefit from adopting different research paradigms for more robust and generalizable conclusions. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that individuals with SAD have better attention inhibition abilities than healthy control. Such enhanced attention inhibition may underlie their avoidance of threatening social cues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jingqi Jiang
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
| | - Yiqin Zhu
- Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA
| | | | - Xu Wen
- Mental Health Research & Treatment Center, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Mingyi Qian
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
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