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BACKGROUND: It is unknown how the patterns of negative and positive attentional biases in children predict fear of COVID-19, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study identified profiles of negative and positive attentional biases in children and examined their association with emotional symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: 264 children (girls: 53.8% and boys: 46.2%) of 9-10 years born in Hong Kong or mainland China from a primary school in Shenzhen, People's Republic of China were involved in a two-wave longitudinal study. Children completed the COVID-19 Fear Scale, the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Attention to Positive and Negative Information Scale to measure fear of COVID-19, anxiety and depression symptoms, and negative and positive attentional biases in classrooms. After six months, they completed the second assessment of fear of COVID-19, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms in classrooms. Latent profile analysis was conducted to reveal distinct profiles of attentional biases in children. A series of repeated MANOVA was performed to examine the association of profiles of attentional biases to fear of COVID-19, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms across 6 months. RESULTS: Three profiles of negative and positive attentional biases were revealed in children. Children with a "moderate positive and high negative attentional biases" profile had significantly higher fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms than children with a "high positive and moderate negative attentional biases" profile. Children with a "low positive and negative attentional biases" profile were not significantly different in fear of COVID-19, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms than those with the other two profiles. CONCLUSIONS: Patterns of negative and positive attentional biases were related to emotional symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. It might be important to consider children's overall patterns of negative and positive attentional biases to identify children at risk of higher emotional symptoms.
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Objective To explore the effects of perceived risk of COVID-19 of college students on their anxiety and depression, as well as the roles of attention to negative information and perceived social support, so as to provide theoretical basis for colleges and universities to formulate corresponding intervention measures. Methods By the convenience sampling method, totally 1 404 college students from Shaanxi and Henan provinces were investigated online by using General Information Questionnaire, Perceived Risk of COVID-19 Pandemic Scale, Attention to Negative Information Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Perceived Social Support Scale. SPSS 20. 0 was used for data analysis, Pearson correlation method was used to explore the correlation between variables. The mediating effect of attention to negative information and the moderating effect of perceived social support were analyzed by PROCESS. Results The scores of anxiety and depression of the 1 404 college students included in the study were 4.03 +/- 4.48 and 6.21 +/- 5.41, respectively. The detection rate of anxiety symptom was 29.9%, and that of depression symptom was 44.4%. The risk perception of COVID-19 epidemic of the college students was positively correlated with attention to negative information (r = 0.373, P<0.001), anxiety (r = 0.227, P<0.001), and depression (r = 0.226, P<0.001). Anxiety (r = 0.553, P<0.001) and depression 0 = 0.497, P<0.001) were positively correlated with attention to negative information, while perceived social support was negatively correlated with the risk perception of the COVID-19 (r = - 0.154, P<0.001), attention to negative information (r= - 0.259, P<0.001), anxiety (r = - 0.321, P<0.001) and depression (r=- 0.278, P<0.001). The risk perception of COVID-19 affected the anxiety and depression of the students mainly through the mediating effect of attention to negative information. The total effect of risk perception of COVID-19 and anxiety was 0. 227, and the mediating effect accounted for 80. 18% of the total effect. The total effect of risk perception of COVID-19 and depression was 0. 228, and the mediating effect accounted for 90. 35% of the total effect. Perceived social support played a moderating role in the last half of this mediating model. Conclusion Risk perception of COVID-19 indirectly affects the occurrence of anxiety and depression in college students through attention to negative information, and perceived social support plays a moderating role in this mediating model. The findings suggest that when a risk event occurs, colleges and universities should pay attention to guiding students to adjust their attentional bias to external information, and give students enough care and support to improve their mental health.Copyright © 2023 Xi'an Medical University. All rights reserved.
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Objective To explore the effects of perceived risk of COVID-19 of college students on their anxiety and depression, as well as the roles of attention to negative information and perceived social support, so as to provide theoretical basis for colleges and universities to formulate corresponding intervention measures. Methods By the convenience sampling method, totally 1 404 college students from Shaanxi and Henan provinces were investigated online by using General Information Questionnaire, Perceived Risk of COVID-19 Pandemic Scale, Attention to Negative Information Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Perceived Social Support Scale. SPSS 20. 0 was used for data analysis, Pearson correlation method was used to explore the correlation between variables. The mediating effect of attention to negative information and the moderating effect of perceived social support were analyzed by PROCESS. Results The scores of anxiety and depression of the 1 404 college students included in the study were 4.03 ± 4.48 and 6.21 ± 5.41, respectively. The detection rate of anxiety symptom was 29.9%, and that of depression symptom was 44.4%. The risk perception of COVID-19 epidemic of the college students was positively correlated with attention to negative information (r = 0.373, P<0.001), anxiety (r = 0.227, P<0.001), and depression (r = 0.226, P<0.001). Anxiety (r = 0.553, P<0.001) and depression 0 = 0.497, P<0.001) were positively correlated with attention to negative information, while perceived social support was negatively correlated with the risk perception of the COVID-19 (r = - 0.154, P<0.001), attention to negative information (r= - 0.259, P<0.001), anxiety (r = - 0.321, P<0.001) and depression (r=- 0.278, P<0.001). The risk perception of COVID-19 affected the anxiety and depression of the students mainly through the mediating effect of attention to negative information. The total effect of risk perception of COVID-19 and anxiety was 0. 227, and the mediating effect accounted for 80. 18% of the total effect. The total effect of risk perception of COVID-19 and depression was 0. 228, and the mediating effect accounted for 90. 35% of the total effect. Perceived social support played a moderating role in the last half of this mediating model. Conclusion Risk perception of COVID-19 indirectly affects the occurrence of anxiety and depression in college students through attention to negative information, and perceived social support plays a moderating role in this mediating model. The findings suggest that when a risk event occurs, colleges and universities should pay attention to guiding students to adjust their attentional bias to external information, and give students enough care and support to improve their mental health. © 2023 Xi'an Medical University. All rights reserved.
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Attentional bias to sleep-related information is thought to be a core feature for developing and/or maintaining insomnia. This study used a hallmark measure of attentional bias, the dot-probe task, to determine whether this bias toward sleep-related stimuli was a function of the severity of insomnia symptoms. A sample of 231 volunteers (175 females; mean age of 26.91 ± 8.05 years) participated in this online study, filling out the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) and performing a visual dot-probe task. After categorizing individuals based on the ISI score into normal, subclinical, and moderate/severe sleep groups, we only found a marginally significant interaction between sleep groups and the type of stimuli on RTs, suggesting that subclinical and moderate/severe sleep groups reported slower RTs for sleep-related words than for neutral words. When we calculated the attentional bias score (ABS), we found that ABS significantly differed from zero in the moderate/severe sleep group only, suggesting a disengagement for sleep-related information as a function of the severity of insomnia symptoms. This finding seems to suggest that insomnia is related to greater difficulties in shifting away from sleep-related stimuli.
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Science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) contexts are imbued with identity-threat cues for women, leading to disengagement. Research on the vigilance-avoidance hypothesis suggests that individuals rapidly detect threat cues and subsequently avoid detected threats to mitigate experiencing the negative implications associated with the threat. Integrating these lines of research, the present research examined White women's preconscious attentional bias to rejection (PAB-R) and avoidance behavior (social distancing) in STEM contexts after exposure to identity-threat and identity-safety cues compared to neutral conditions. White women's PAB-R was significantly greater in response to identity-threat cues and significantly decreased in response to identity-safety cues. Moreover, greater PAB-R led to greater social distancing (Studies 1b and 2). The present studies identified PAB-R as a novel, automatic process by which identity cues were associated with avoidance for women in STEM.
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Attentional bias toward health-threat may theoretically contribute to the development and maintenance of health anxiety, but the empirical findings have been controversial. This study aimed to synthesize and explore the heterogeneity in a health-threat related attentional bias of health-anxious individuals, and to determine the theoretical model that better represents the pattern of attentional bias in health anxiety. Four databases (Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus) were searched for relevant studies, with 17 articles (N = 1546) included for a qualitative review and 16 articles (18 studies) for a three-level meta-analysis (N = 1490). The meta-analytic results indicated that the health anxiety group, compared to the control group, showed significantly greater attentional bias toward health-threat (g = 0.256). Further analyses revealed that attentional bias type, paradigm, and stimuli type were significant moderators. Additionally, compared to the controls, health-anxious individuals displayed significantly greater attention maintenance (g = 0.327) but nonsignificant attention vigilance to health-threat (g = -0.116). Our results provide evidence for the attention maintenance model in health-anxious individuals. The implications for further research and treatment of elevated health anxiety in the context of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) were also discussed.
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Attentional Bias , COVID-19 , Anxiety , Anxiety Disorders , HumansABSTRACT
Objective: After the COVID-19 outbreak, corona anxiety has become prevalent all over the world. To understand and treat this type of anxiety, researchers have examined its relationship with attentional bias, a phenomenon closely associated with other types of anxiety. The dot-probe task is a common instrument used for the evaluation of attentional bias. However, the psychometric properties of this instrument, when used for the assessment of attentional bias towards corona-related stimuli, are unknown. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the COVID-19 dot-probe task to see whether its application in COVID-19 studies is justified. Methods: A total of 362 Iranian adults completed the COVID-19 dot-probe task and Corona Anxiety Disease Scale (CADS), 146 of whom repeated this procedure after two weeks to provide test-retest data. Split-half reliability, the Cronbach alpha, intraclass correlation coefficient of test-retest scores, and associations between COVID-19 dot-probe task and CADS were calculated using SPSS v. 26. Results: The study results indicated that the standard version of the COVID-19 dot-probe task lacks internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and criterion validity, whereas the response-based version of the instrument promotes all of these psychometric properties to an acceptable level. Conclusion: COVID-19 dot-probe task is a psychometrically sound instrument for evaluating corona-related attentional bias and investigating its role in the mechanism of corona anxiety, only if the response-based method of computation is used for calculating the measures of attentional bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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Objective: The negative impacts of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak on public mental health are enhancing the number of individuals requiring psychotherapy. Besides, anxiety is becoming more frequent than any other mental health issue among individuals. Similar to other anxiety types, coronavirus anxiety is associated with elevated attentional bias. The present study aimed to examine the effects of Attentional Bias Modification (ABM) on attentional bias towards coronavirus-related stimuli, and coronavirus anxiety. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest-follow-up and a control group design. The research participants were 37 adults (aged 18 to 38 y), who were randomly assigned to the experimental (n=18) and control (n=19) groups. The experimental group received ABM, while no intervention was delivered to the controls. Attentional bias and coronavirus disease anxiety were assessed at pretest, posttest, and 2 months follow-up stages using the Dot- Probe Task (DPT) and the Corona Disease Anxiety Scale (CDAS). The collected data were analyzed using two-way repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Fisher's least significant difference in SPSS v. 26. Results: After receiving online ABM, the study participant's coronavirus-related attentional bias decreased, leading to a significant reduction in coronavirus anxiety (P<0.05). These significant changes were evident at the posttest and maintained until the follow-up step. However, no significant changes occurred in the control group (P>0.05). Conclusion: The presented ABM could decrease coronavirus anxiety;thus, its online implementation is a suitable approach to treat individuals with this anxiety while observing social distancing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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BACKGROUND: Smoking is a global health threat. Attentional bias influences smoking behaviors. Although attentional bias retraining has shown benefits and recent advances in technology suggest that attentional bias retraining can be delivered via smartphone apps, there is a paucity of research on this topic. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to address this gap by exploring the use of attentional bias retraining via a novel smartphone app using a mixed methods pilot study. In the quantitative phase, it is hypothesized that participants in the training group who undertake attentional bias retraining via the app should have decreased levels of attentional bias, subjective craving, and smoking frequency, compared with those in the control group who do not undertake attentional bias retraining. The qualitative phase explores how the participants perceive and experience the novel app. METHODS: In all, 10 adult smokers (3 females and 7 males) between the ages of 26 and 56 years (mean 34.4 years, SD 9.97 years) were recruited. The participants were randomly allocated to the training and control groups. In weeks 1 and 3, participants from both groups attempted the standard visual probe task and rated their smoking frequency and subjective craving. In week 2, the participants in the training group attempted the modified visual probe task. After week 3, participants from both groups were interviewed about their views and experiences of the novel app. RESULTS: The results of the quantitative analysis did not support this study's hypothesis. The qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The results yielded 5 themes: ease, helpfulness, unhelpful aspects, barriers, and refinement. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from the qualitative study were consistent with those from previous studies on health-related smartphone apps. The qualitative results were helpful in understanding the user perspectives and experiences of the novel app, indicating that future research in this innovative area is necessary.
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The neurobiological processing of eating behavior is transmitted to the cortical and subcortical nuclei where multisensory stimuli are integrated, such as olfactory ones, associated with emotion, learning and memory. With this review, the implications between emotional memory and olfactory stimuli, and neurobiological basis are analyzed and described. Also, the main cognitive processes involved in the preference for hypo and hypercaloric foods and their relationship with eating disorders such as obesity are indicated, a condition that converges with a negative effect during the COVID-19 disease. It requires the application of neuropsychological methods that include the measurement of the effect of multisensory stimuli to assess food preference. Since olfactory stimuli and emotional memory participate in food choices, promoting or not the development of eating disorders. Adapting the paradigms of neuropsychology such as the alimentary Stroop would underpin the generation of strategies for the prevention of the development of eating disorders such as obesity.
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The psychological and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are pervasive, and there is potential for a long-lasting impact on mental health. In the current study, we sought to provide, in a representative sample of UK residents during the third COVID-19 lockdown in February 2021, further evidence for the validation of the COVID-19 anxiety syndrome construct. We did this by evaluating the COVID-19 anxiety syndrome against measures of personality, health anxiety and COVID-19 anxiety in predicting levels of generalized anxiety and depression and by examining whether increased health anxiety and COVID-19 psychological distress (COVID-19 anxiety and COVID-19 anxiety syndrome) scores were associated with increased attentional bias to COVID-19-related stimuli. A series of correlation analyses revealed that neuroticism, health anxiety, COVID-19 anxiety and COVID-19 anxiety syndrome scores were positively and significantly correlated with generalized anxiety and depression scores and that the perseveration component of the COVID-19 anxiety syndrome predicted generalized anxiety and depression scores independently of age, gender, conscientiousness, openness, health anxiety and COVID-19 anxiety. Furthermore, results indicated that only the total COVID-19 anxiety syndrome score and the scores on the avoidance and perseveration components were positively and significantly correlated with attentional bias indices. More specifically, the general attentional bias index was only shown to be positively and significantly correlated with the total COVID-19 anxiety syndrome score and its perseveration component, while slowed disengagement was only shown to be negatively and significantly correlated with the total COVID-19 anxiety syndrome score and its avoidance component. The implications of these findings are discussed.