Stop what you are not doing! Emotional pictures interfere with the task not to respond

Previous research has shown that emotional stimuli interfere with ongoing activities One explanation is that these stimuli draw attention away from the primary task and thereby hamper the correct execution of the task Another explanation is that emotional stimuli cause a temporary freezing of all ongoing activity We used a go/no-go task to differentiate between these accounts According to the attention account, emotional distractors should impair performance on both go and no-go trials According to the freezing account, the presentation of emotional stimuli should be detrimental to performance on go trials, but beneficial for performance on no-go trials Our findings confirm the former prediction Pictures high in emotional arousal impaired performance on no-go trials

Attention to future actions: the influence of instructed S-R versus S-S mappings on attentional control

Even though there is ample evidence that planning future actions plays a role in attentional processing (e.g., Downing Visual Cognition 11:689-703, 2000; Soto et al., Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12:248-342, 2008), it is not clear to what extent planning in itself (rather than the prior experience of the planned actions) controls attention. We suggest that attention can be biased towards stimuli that are associated with instructions for tasks that will be performed in the future even if those tasks have not yet been experienced. We performed two experiments in which participants receive instructions in which some objects were associated with a response (i.e., instructed S-R objects; "Experiment 1") or a stimulus property (i.e., instructed S-S objects; "Experiment 2"), whereas control objects were not. However, before participants were required to perform the S-R task ("Experiment 1") or perform an S-S memory task ("Experiment 2"), they performed a visual probe task in which target objects and control objects served as irrelevant cues. Our results show that attention was biased towards the S-R objects (compared to control stimuli) but not to S-S objects. These findings suggest that future plans can bias attention toward specific stimuli, but only when these stimuli are associated with a specific action. We discuss these findings in light of research concerning automatic effects of instructions and theories that view attention as a selection-for-action mechanism

Reduced attentional blink for alcohol-related stimuli in heavy social drinkers

Researchers have used various paradigms to show that attentional biases for substance-related stimuli are an important feature of addictive behaviours. However, it is not clear whether these attentional biases occur at the level of encoding or at later post-attentive processing stages. We examined attentional bias at the level of encoding with the attentional blink paradigm in a sample of non-clinical heavy and light-drinking students. Our results show a diminished attentional blink effect for alcohol-related words compared with soft drink-related words among heavy drinkers. The attentional blink was equally strong for alcohol-related and soft drink-related words among light drinkers. This suggests that alcohol-related information is processed relatively more efficiently in the former group. Even though these results are promising, our study shows that the internal consistency of the attentional blink can be improved

Is the emotional modulation of the attentional blink driven by response bias?

Several studies have shown that the attentional blink (AB; Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992) is diminished for highly arousing T2 stimuli (e.g., Anderson, 2005). Whereas this effect is most often interpreted as evidence for a more efficient processing of arousing information, it could be due also to a bias to report more arousing stimuli than neutral stimuli. We introduce a paradigm that allows one to control for such a response bias. Using this paradigm, we obtained evidence that the diminished AB for taboo words cannot be explained by a response bias. This supports the idea that the emotional modulation of the AB is caused by attentional processes

The Dutch version of the McLean Screening Instrument for borderline personality disorder (MSI-BPD)

Objective: Borderline personality disorder is a severe and disabling condition, with suicide rates up to 10%. A simple and valid screening instrument for borderline symptomatology would be of great use. Method: We translated the McLean Screening Instrument for borderline personality disorder (MSI-BPD) in Dutch and present initial validation data from a sample of 459 (mostly female) undergraduates. Results: Principal component analysis indicated that a single component underlies variability in the 10 items of the MSI-BPD. Internal consistency was adequate (alpha=.76), and test-retest reliability in a subsample as high (ca 4 months: r=.80). Females scored significantly higher than males. Finally, the MSI-BPD correlated strongly (r=.62) with depression as assessed by the BDI-II-NL. Conclusions: These data provide initial support for the reliability and the validity of the Dutch MSI-BPD, yet application in clinical practice requires information on the diagnostic agreement with a validated structured clinical interview

Automaticity:schema modes in addiction

Automaticity is a hallmark of substance use disorder. In Schema Therapy (an evidence-based form of psychotherapy, that has also been applied to substance use disorders), automaticity appears to be a relevant variable. However, the role of automaticity in Schema Therapy has never been made explicit. In the present article, we investigate the role of automaticity in schema modes and its role in different phases in Schema Therapy for substance use disorders. In performing this investigation, we facilitate a better understanding of the working mechanisms of Schema Therapy, and, vice versa, suggest an alternative understanding of automaticity in substance use disorders. We suggest that the automatic use of substances is way of coping with schemas and, therefore, is the consequence of schema mode activity. In the article, four characteristics of automaticity (unconscious, uncontrollable/uncontrolled, efficient, fast) are translated to schema modes. Subsequently, a Schema Therapy case of a patient suffering from an alcohol use disorder and a narcissistic personality disorder is discussed, focusing on the four facets of automaticity. Last, implications for theory, clinical practice and future research are discussed.</p

Attention for future reward

When stimuli are consistently paired with reward, attention toward these stimuli becomes biased (e.g., Abrahamse, Braem, Notebaert & Verguts, et al., Psychological Bulletin 142:693–728, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000047). An important premise is that participants need to repeatedly experience stimulus–reward pairings to obtain these effects (e.g., Awh, Belopolsky & Theeuwes, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16:437–443, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.06.010). This idea is based on associative learning theories (e.g., Pearce & Bouton, Annual Review of Psychology 52:111–139, 2001) that suggest that exposure to stimulus–reward pairings leads to the formation of stimulus–reward associations, and a transfer of salience of the reward to the neutral stimulus. However, novel learning theories (e.g., De Houwer, Learning and Motivation 53:7–23, 2009, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2015.11.001) suggest such effects are not necessarily the result of associative learning, but can be caused by complex knowledge and expectancies as well. In the current experiment, we first instructed participants that a correct response to one centrally presented stimulus would be followed by a high reward, whereas a correct response to another centrally presented stimulus would be paired with a low reward. Before participants executed this task, they performed a visual probe task in which these stimuli were presented as distractors. We found that attention was drawn automatically toward high-reward stimuli relative to low-reward stimuli. This implies that complex inferences and expectancies can cause automatic attentional bias, challenging associative learning models of attentional control (Abrahamse et al., 2016; Awh et al., 2012)

Automaticity:schema modes in addiction

Automaticity is a hallmark of substance use disorder. In Schema Therapy (an evidence-based form of psychotherapy, that has also been applied to substance use disorders), automaticity appears to be a relevant variable. However, the role of automaticity in Schema Therapy has never been made explicit. In the present article, we investigate the role of automaticity in schema modes and its role in different phases in Schema Therapy for substance use disorders. In performing this investigation, we facilitate a better understanding of the working mechanisms of Schema Therapy, and, vice versa, suggest an alternative understanding of automaticity in substance use disorders. We suggest that the automatic use of substances is way of coping with schemas and, therefore, is the consequence of schema mode activity. In the article, four characteristics of automaticity (unconscious, uncontrollable/uncontrolled, efficient, fast) are translated to schema modes. Subsequently, a Schema Therapy case of a patient suffering from an alcohol use disorder and a narcissistic personality disorder is discussed, focusing on the four facets of automaticity. Last, implications for theory, clinical practice and future research are discussed.</p

Heavy social drinkers score higher on implicit wanting and liking for alcohol than alcohol-dependent patients and light social drinkers

Abstract Background and objectives Automatic hedonic ("liking") and incentive ("wanting") processes are assumed to play an important role in addiction. Whereas some neurobiological theories suggest that these processes become dissociated when drug use develops into an addiction (i.e. "liking" becomes weaker, whereas "wanting" becomes exaggerated; e.g. Robinson & Berridge, 1993), other theories suggest that there is a linear relationship between these two processes (i.e. both "liking" and "wanting" increase equally; e.g. Koob & Le Moal, 1997). Our aim was to examine "wanting" and "liking" in three groups of participants: alcohol-dependent patients, heavy social drinkers, and light social drinkers. Methods Participants performed two different single target implicit association tests (ST-IATs; e.g. Bluemke & Friese, 2007) and explicit ratings that were designed to measure "liking" and "wanting" for alcohol. Results Our results are in sharp contrast with the theories of both Robinson and Berridge and Koob and Le Moal: heavy drinkers had higher scores than light drinkers and alcohol-dependent patients on both the wanting ST-IAT and the liking ST-IAT. There were no differences between alcohol-dependent patients and light drinkers. Explicit ratings mirrored these results. Limitations These findings suggest that our ST-IATs are not valid measures of "wanting" and "liking". Instead, they might assess more complex knowledge regarding participants' experiences and goals. Conclusions These findings suggest that the relationship between drug consumption and appetitive drug associations is not linear, highlighting the importance of testing both sub-clinical and clinical samples in future research.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe