Reutter Mario, Hewig Johannes, Wieser Matthias J, Osinsky Roman
Department of Psychology I, Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg, Germany.
Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Psychophysiology. 2017 Apr;54(4):519-527. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12809. Epub 2017 Jan 22.
We systematically compared different measures of attentional bias (i.e., reaction times, the N2pc component in the EEG, and explicit stimulus ratings) on their ability to reveal attentional engagement to threatening versus neutral facial stimuli in a Dot Probe Task and tested their relation to trait measures of general and social anxiety. We found that the N2pc component reflects a bias toward angry faces with excellent internal consistency. Similar results were obtained for explicit ratings. Reaction time (RT) differences, however, were not indicative of attentional biases and showed zero odd-even reliability. We further found that both higher (i.e., more negative) N2pc amplitudes and earlier peak latencies were associated with more severe symptoms of social anxiety even when controlling for general trait anxiety. The explicit rating biases were also specifically associated with social anxiety. Conversely, the RT bias was not related to social anxiety levels but to general trait anxiety. This highlights the importance of valid and reliable outcome measures for interventions such as attentional bias modification protocols. Mutual exclusivity of different bias operationalizations is discussed.
我们系统地比较了不同的注意偏向测量方法（即反应时间、脑电图中的N2pc成分和明确的刺激评分）在点探测任务中揭示对威胁性与中性面部刺激的注意参与能力，并测试了它们与一般和社交焦虑特质测量的关系。我们发现，N2pc成分反映了对愤怒面孔的偏向，具有出色的内部一致性。明确评分也得到了类似结果。然而，反应时间（RT）差异并不表明存在注意偏向，且奇偶可靠性为零。我们进一步发现，即使在控制一般特质焦虑的情况下，更高（即更负）的N2pc波幅和更早的峰值潜伏期也与更严重的社交焦虑症状相关。明确的评分偏向也与社交焦虑具体相关。相反，RT偏向与社交焦虑水平无关，而是与一般特质焦虑有关。这凸显了有效且可靠的结果测量对于诸如注意偏向修正方案等干预措施的重要性。文中还讨论了不同偏向操作化的相互排斥性。
