Lazarov Amit, Suarez-Jimenez Benjamin, Zhu Xi, Pine Daniel S, Bar-Haim Yair, Neria Yuval
School of Psychological, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
Psychol Med. 2021 Feb 26:1-10. doi: 10.1017/S0033291721000581.
Eye-tracking-based attentional research implicates sustained attention to threat in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, most of this research employed small stimuli set-sizes, small samples that did not include both trauma-exposed healthy participants and non-trauma-exposed participants, and generally failed to report the reliability of used tasks and attention indices. Here, using an established eye-tracking paradigm, we explore attention processes to different negatively-valenced cues in PTSD while addressing these limitations.
PTSD patients (n = 37), trauma-exposed healthy controls (TEHC; n = 34), and healthy controls (HC; n = 30) freely viewed three blocks of 30 different matrices of faces, each presented for 6 s. Each block consisted of matrices depicting eight negatively-valenced faces (anger, fear, or sadness) and eight neutral faces. Gaze patterns on negative and neural areas of interest were compared. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were evaluated for the entire sample and within groups.
The two trauma-exposed groups dwelled longer on negatively-valenced faces over neutral faces, while HC participants showed the opposite pattern. This attentional bias was more prominent in the PTSD than the TEHC group. Similar results emerged for first-fixation dwell time, but with no differences between the two trauma-exposed groups. No group differences emerged for first-fixation latency or location. Internal consistency and 1-week test-retest reliability were adequate, across and within groups.
Sustained attention on negatively-valenced stimuli emerges as a potential target for therapeutic intervention in PTSD designed to divert attention away from negatively-valenced stimuli and toward neutral ones.
基于眼动追踪的注意力研究表明，创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）患者会持续关注威胁。然而，大多数此类研究使用的刺激集规模较小，样本量也小，且未纳入受过创伤的健康参与者和未受过创伤的参与者，并且通常未报告所使用任务和注意力指标的可靠性。在此，我们使用既定的眼动追踪范式，在解决这些局限性的同时，探索PTSD患者对不同负性情绪线索的注意力过程。
PTSD患者（n = 37）、受过创伤的健康对照者（TEHC；n = 34）和健康对照者（HC；n = 30）自由观看三组共30个不同的面部矩阵，每个矩阵呈现6秒。每组矩阵包括描绘8张负性情绪面孔（愤怒、恐惧或悲伤）和8张中性面孔。比较负性和中性感兴趣区域的注视模式。评估整个样本以及各亚组的内部一致性和重测信度。
两个受过创伤的组对负性情绪面孔的注视时间比对中性面孔更长，而HC参与者表现出相反的模式。这种注意力偏差在PTSD组中比TEHC组更明显。首次注视停留时间也出现了类似结果，但两个受过创伤的组之间没有差异。首次注视潜伏期或位置没有组间差异。各亚组间及亚组内的内部一致性和1周重测信度均良好。
持续关注负性情绪刺激是PTSD治疗干预的一个潜在目标，旨在将注意力从负性情绪刺激转移到中性刺激上。
