en
Scientific article
English

Spatiotemporal brain dynamics underlying attentional bias modifications

Published inInternational Journal of Psychophysiology, vol. 130, p. 29-39
Publication date2018
Abstract

Exaggerated attentional biases toward specific elements of the environment contribute to the maintenance of several psychiatric conditions, such as biases to threatening faces in social anxiety. Although recent literature indicates that attentional bias modification may constitute an effective approach for psychiatric remediation, the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms remain unclear. We addressed this question by recording EEG in 24 healthy participants performing a modified dot-probe task in which pairs of neutral cues (colored shapes) were replaced by probe stimuli requiring a discrimination judgment. To induce an attentional bias toward or away from the cues, the probes were systematically presented either at the same or at the opposite position of a specific cue color. This paradigm enabled participants to spontaneously develop biases to initially unbiased, neutral cues, as measured by the response speed to the probe presented after the cues. Behavioral result indicated that the ABM procedure induced approach and avoidance biases. The influence of ABM on inhibitory control was assessed in a separated Go/NoGo task: changes in AB did not influence participants' capacity to inhibit their responses to the cues. Attentional bias modification was associated with a topographic modulation of event-related potentials already 50-84 ms following the onset of the cues. Statistical analyses of distributed electrical source estimations revealed that the development of attentional biases was associated with decreased activity in the left temporo-parieto-occipital junction. These findings suggest that attentional bias modification affects early sensory processing phases related to the extraction of information based on stimulus saliency.

Keywords
  • Attentional Bias/physiology
  • Brain/physiology
  • Brain Mapping
  • Cues
  • Electroencephalography
  • Evoked Potentials/physiology
  • Female
  • Healthy Volunteers
  • Humans
  • Inhibition (Psychology)
  • Male
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Reaction Time/physiology
  • Statistics
  • Nonparametric
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Visual Perception/physiology
Citation (ISO format)
SALLARD, Etienne et al. Spatiotemporal brain dynamics underlying attentional bias modifications. In: International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2018, vol. 130, p. 29–39. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2018.06.001
Main files (1)
Article (Published version)
accessLevelRestricted
Identifiers
ISSN of the journal0167-8760
230views
0downloads

Technical informations

Creation09/02/2019 10:20:00 AM
First validation09/02/2019 10:20:00 AM
Update time03/15/2023 6:28:34 PM
Status update03/15/2023 6:28:33 PM
Last indexation08/30/2023 9:46:55 PM
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack