Background: Cross-sectional and experimental research has shown that female smokers more frequently report using cigarettes to control negative affect, manage dietary restraint, and suppress body image dissatisfaction. However, there has been little research to identify cognitive mechanisms that may underlie these effects. Cross-stimulus attentional bias is one such mechanism. Aims and Hypotheses: We hypothesized that, when compared to neutral stimuli, in-vivo appetitive stimuli would enhance motivation to obtain a particular substance. More specifically, in-vivo smoking stimuli would increase attentional bias to smoking-related pictorial cues, whereas in-vivo food stimuli would increase attention to smoking-related and food-related pictorial cues. We also hypothesized that environmental tobacco smoke exposure history, negative affect, dietary restraint, body image dissatisfaction, and perceived appetite suppression of smoking would influence these attentional biases, such that higher levels of these characteristics would produce greater attentional biases. Method: Thirty-five female smokers were exposed to visual stimuli containing two independent pictorial cues: smoking/neutral, smoking/food, neutral/food, or neutral/neutral. Twenty images were presented in 3 counter-balanced, within-subjects sets differentiated by smoking (cigarette pack), food (snack) and neutral (jewelry) in-vivo stimuli. Attentional bias was measured using eye-tracking technology. Dietary restraint, body image dissatisfaction, negative affect, and environmental tobacco smoke exposure were assessed with self-report measures before the manipulations. Results: Effects counter to the hypotheses were observed, as in-vivo cigarettes and snack foods did not cause participants to differentially attend to pictorial smoking or food stimuli. Initial and maintained attention to smoking pictorial cues was greater than attention to food and neutral cues only when participants were administered a non-appetitive in-vivo stimulus. None of the theoretically hypothesized personality characteristics served as predictors or moderators of attentional bias. Discussion: Findings with the neutral in-vivo stimulus replicate and extend previous research identifying attentional bias for smoking cues among smokers. Results also enhance understanding of how attentional bias may change when smokers encounter other types of appetitive stimuli. These findings encourage further theoretical and clinical exploration of how the relationship between motivation and attentional bias can be conceptualized and translated from the laboratory to the natural environment.

To explore the application of a cognitive test useful in screening of Exhaustion Disorder (ED), this study aimed to develop a Modified Stroop Task for ED. Participants’ scores on measures of burnout, anxiety, depression and stress were compared with performance on the task. The sample consisted of 56 participants (M=25.3 years), 30 women and 22 males, with the majority enrolled in fulltime higher education. The task consisted of five blocks with 100 stimuli in each block. The task was administered on a computer; upon completion of the task participants completed questionnaires measuring levels of burnout, anxiety and depression, as well as perceived stress. Raw scores on the task were calculated using a format comprised of both response times and number of errors. Data were analysed by comparing mean scores on the Stroop blocks using one-way repeated measures ANOVA. Additionally, median splits were undertaken on the scores on the questionnaires to enable between group comparisons using MANOVAs. The results showed no significant differences between high and low scores on the questionnaires and performance on the task. A Stroop interference effect was observed and there was a tendency that high exhausted participants performed worse than less exhausted participants. In conclusion the Modified Stroop Task offers some promise, although as of yet it cannot be assumed to be an accurate modification of an Emotional Stroop Task, due to limitations regarding the method; preliminary findings may serve as a pilot test for future research.

Master of Science / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Joyce Baptist / This study examined the efficacy of EMDR therapy as a treatment for unipolar depression. Results provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of EMDR therapy. Of the 12 participants that received 10 sessions of EMDR therapy, four met the criteria for “Recovered,” six “Improved” and two reported no change in severity of depressive symptoms. Results further indicated that participants who experienced decline in depressive symptoms within the first six sessions of treatment had a higher probability to be meet the criteria for “Recovered.” A small sample comparison between EMDR therapy (n = 4) and CBT (n = 4) did not find any significant difference in terms of treatment outcome. In phase 2, participants in both groups either improved or recovered after 10 sessions of treatment. Sudden gains analysis indicated that 5 out of 12 EMDR therapy participants had sudden gains. Participants in sudden gains group were more likely to meet “Recovered” criteria than participants in no-gains group. Examination of attention bias found that depression was positively related to negative affect fixation duration and negatively related to positive affect fixation duration when only using female affect images. These findings support previous research that used attention bias to differentiate depressed and non-depressed persons. Clinical implication and further research are discussed.

Many of the symptoms characteristic of PTSD such as hypervigiliance towards threat, involve attentional processes. The first part of this thesis explored the role of attentional processes in the maintenance and treatment of PTSD. Although general models of anxiety give attentional processes central prominence cognitive models of PTSD (e.g., Foa & Riggs, 1993; Brewin, Dalgleish, & Joseph, 1996; Ehlers & Clark, 2000) assign an important role to trauma memory and place little or no emphasis on the role of attentional processes in maintaining symptoms. Models of anxiety have suggested that attentional bias is automatic (Mathews & Macleod, 2002) or strategic (Wells & Mathews, 1994). Wells' (2000) Metacognitive Model of PTSD is one of the few models to emphasis thinking style and attention rather then memory. In this model attentional bias is thought to be strategic in nature. The evidence reviewed supports a role of attention in PTSD and suggests it may be beneficial to modify this process. Two different attention techniques based on models of bias are reviewed.The second part of the thesis described a randomized controlled evaluation of attentional training technique (ATT; Wells, 1990) on traumatic stress symptoms in a sample of 60 university students, who had previously experienced a stressful life event. ATT is a technique used in metacognitive therapy to modify the control of attention. Participants were randomly assigned to either an ATT group (n = 29) or a control group (n = 31). An emotional attention set shifting task was included as an objective measure of attention. The results supported the hypotheses, ATT reduced intrusions and negative affect, increased self-report attention flexibility and modified performance on the attention set shifting task. The results are consistent with the metacognitive model of PTSD. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed and the results add to studies suggesting positive effects of the technique across a range of disorders.The third part critically reflected on methodological and ethical issues from the above research study. The interpretation of the findings is limited by the student population. It is acknowledged that the results are preliminary in nature but it is believed that the study provides useful insights into the role of attentional processes in the development and treatment of traumatic stress symptoms and provides a basis for studies in the future.

Depression is an emerging risk factor for obesity; however, it is unclear whether certain depressive symptoms drive this relationship. Recent evidence suggests that atypical major depressive disorder (MDD) – whose key features include the reversed somatic-vegetative symptoms of hyperphagia (increased appetite) and hypersomnia (increased sleep) – is a stronger predictor of future obesity than other MDD subtypes. The present study sought to examine food attentional bias (increased attention to food cues), emotional eating (eating in response to negative emotions), and external eating (eating in response to external food cues) as candidate mechanisms of the depression-to-obesity relationship. This cross-sectional laboratory study hypothesized that total depressive symptom severity, hyperphagia severity, and hypersomnia severity would all be positively associated with measures of food attentional bias, emotional eating, and external eating. Data were collected from a sample of 95 undergraduate students. Depressive symptom severity was measured using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL-20); two measures of food attentional bias were obtained from eye tracking with high calorie food images: direction bias and duration bias; and emotional eating and external eating were assessed using the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Simultaneous regression models (adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, body mass index, and subjective hunger) revealed total depressive symptom severity and hypersomnia severity were not associated with measures of food attentional bias, while hyperphagia severity was negatively associated with direction bias but not associated with duration bias for high and low calorie food images. Findings related to emotional and external eating are consistent with previous literature: total depressive symptom severity and hyperphagia severity were positively associated with both emotional eating and external eating, and the pattern of results suggests that hyperphagia may be driving relationships between depressive symptoms and these eating behaviors. Hypersomnia severity was not associated with emotional eating and external eating, suggesting this symptom does not play an important role in the relationships between depressive symptoms and these eating behaviors. Future studies should examine prospective associations of hyperphagia severity with food attentional bias, emotional eating, and external eating in larger, more representative samples.

Much research testing positive psychological interventions (PPIs) has focused on the outcome of emotion regulation (e.g., increased positive or decreased negative emotions and affect). On the other hand, most research testing the effects of attention bias modification (ABM) has focused on the process of emotion regulation (e.g., reducing biased attention towards threatening faces in those with social anxiety disorder). Evidence is sparse and inconsistent on the process of emotion regulation in PPIs and the outcome of emotion regulation in ABM programs. Furthermore, few studies have examined the combined effects of a positive ABM (PABM) with PPIs, which is the focus of the current investigation. The aim of the study is to examine two relationships: 1) the effects of the gratitude letter PPI on the process of emotion regulation and 2) the combined effects of the PABM program and the gratitude letter PPI on the process and outcome of emotion regulation. The researchers used a dot-probe task to bias attention. The dot-probe task presented positive-neutral stimuli pairs (e.g., babies; geometric pattern). In the train-positive group, the probe appeared behind the positive images 90% of the time, compared to 50% in the control group. The researchers used a gratitude letter PPI, where participants wrote a letter for 15 minutes to someone they have never thanked, compared to the control condition who wrote a letter about their morning routine. The results suggest that the gratitude letter PPI does not affect the process of emotion regulation via attentional biases but does increase positive affect in the short term. Further, the PABM program may not affect the outcome of emotion regulation but did demonstrate a biasing of reaction time to positive pictures. This biasing of reaction times in the dot-probe was not consistent with eye-gaze patterns to positive images, suggesting that the dot-probe task does not measure or manipulate attentional biases. Finally, combining the dot-probe task and gratitude letter PPI did not produce a stronger effect on the process and outcome of emotion regulation than the gratitude letter alone. The findings of the current study suggest that the gratitude letter may be an effective and quick intervention to increase positive affect, but that the intervention is not suitable for long-term changes after a single administration. Further, individuals should not expect the dot-probe task to bias attention and should not except the task to influence the outcome of emotion regulation. Instead, researchers could use the task to measure and manipulate one’s decision-making processing speed.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Marijuana use is associated with many health risks, but is increasingly becoming more accepted; thus, use rates, as well as negative consequences, are growing. There is a need to better understand marijuana use behaviors so as to reduce its negative effects. The current study sought to test the viability of applying urgency theory to marijuana use behaviors by examining several pathways among negative urgency, marijuana-related attentional bias, coping motives, and marijuana use behaviors, across men and women. Participants (n=120, mean age= 26.61 years (SD=9.28), 50% women, 63% White/Caucasian) were recruited from the Indianapolis, IN area to participate in a cross-sectional study in which they completed self-report measures and a visual-probe computer task with eye-tracking following negative mood induction. Regression analyses and the PROCESS macro were used to examine study hypotheses. Several pathways were supported: Negative urgency was significantly associated with coping motives (β=0.24, p=0.01), coping motives were significantly associated with marijuana use behaviors (ΔR2= 0.55, p<0.01), and a serial mediation model was supported, in which the relationship between negative urgency and negative marijuana consequences was mediated by coping motives and then by marijuana use frequency (c’= 0.20, 95%CI= 0.06 to 0.50). Competing models were examined and not supported. There were no statistically significant pathways involving the attentional bias measures; although there was a pattern of small effect sizes demonstrating that attentional biases may relate to marijuana use behaviors in men and not in women. Findings from the current study serve as preliminary support for applying urgency theory to marijuana use behaviors. Overall, these findings suggest that negative urgency is a distal risk factor that influences the development of other, more proximal, predictors of marijuana use and negative marijuana consequences. Future studies should examine the time order of these relationships longitudinally to replicate and provide more confidence in the causal order of the model supported in the present study.

No description available.

Individuals with high anxiety levels from clinical and non-clinical populations tend to exhibit an attentional bias where they selectively allocate more attention to threat stimuli than neutral stimuli, in comparison to individuals with lower anxiety levels. However, longitudinal studies investigating the relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety––some of the most common mental disorders––are scarce. Using a concurrent and longitudinal design, we investigated the relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety; concurrently in adulthood (the 30s) as well as longitudinally between young adulthood (the 20s) and adulthood (the 30s). We also investigated whether attentional bias to threat in the 30s moderated and/or mediated the relation between symptoms of psychopathology in the 20s and the same symptoms in the 30s. We found significant concurrent correlations between attentional bias to threat and greater symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety in the 30s. We also found positive longitudinal correlations between attentional bias to threat in the 30s and symptoms of anxiety (approached significance) and depression (significant) in the 20s. Thus, greater symptoms of internalizing-related psychopathology were associated with greater attentional bias to threat. Attentional bias to threat did not mediate the relation between early psychopathology and later psychopathology, but it did moderate the relation between anxiety in the 20s and social anxiety nearly a decade later. In individuals with greater attentional bias to threat, early anxiety was significantly associated with and predicted greater future social anxiety, but this was not the case for individuals with lower attentional bias to threat. Hence, attentional bias to threat may have a critical role in internalizing-related psychopathology, and interventions targeting it may have preventative and therapeutic potential for mitigating the likelihood of the development and/or persistence of internalizing-related psychopathology. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / People with higher anxiety levels pay more attention to threatening information than neutral information, compared to people with lower anxiety levels. Relatively few studies have investigated the long-term relation between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of mental disorder. Our study investigated the concurrent and longitudinal relations between attentional bias to threat and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and social anxiety. We found that anxiety, depression, and social anxiety in the 30s were concurrently related to greater attentional bias to threat. Additionally, anxiety and depression in the 20s were longitudinally related to greater attentional bias to threat 10 years later. Moreover, people with high anxiety and high attentional bias to threat were more likely to experience social anxiety in the future than people with high anxiety but low attentional bias to threat. Therefore, attentional bias to threat might have a critical role in the development and/or persistence of some mental disorders.

No description available.