Beyond the Dot Probe: Innovations in Measuring Affect-Biased Attention Across Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Affect biased attention (ABA) may shape early emotion regulation, as well as trajectories of socioemotional development. However, much of the literature has relied solely on the classic dot-probe task, although recent work suggests that the dot-probe in isolation offers an unreliable metric of ABA. Furthermore, assessments of ABA are often constrained to computer screens in traditional laboratory environments, limiting ecological validity (Risko et al., 2016). This symposium highlights studies working to overcome these limitations in examining attention, improving the robustness and translatability of this research. These presentations from a group of international scientists utilize multi-method and multi-scale approaches with diverse methodology and innovative tasks to capture ABA in varied populations.
Presentation one uses second-by-second mobile eye-tracking data to assess ABA as a dynamic construct in kindergarteners, testing associations between behavioral inhibition and gaze to a potentially-threatening stranger. Presentation two presents a novel emotion-primed visual search task across five different studies, each featuring multimodal approaches (eye-tracking, fMRI, electrophysiology) across diverse populations, including anxious children, infants from Bhutan, and Syrian refugee families.

Our discussant will examine how various diverse attention mechanisms, and their novel operationalizations, may influence development by interacting with an individual’s environment. Together, these presentations emphasize the utility of multiple measures of attention, as well as the strength of non-traditional paradigms in assessing ABA beginning in infancy.

Sub Unit

• Attention, Learning, Memory

Chair

• Kelley E Gunther, Yale University

Discussant

• Natasha Kirkham, Birkbeck University of London

Individual Presentations

• Behavioral Inhibition Significantly Relates to Attentional Orienting to High Social Threat in Kindergarteners. - Presenting Author: Kelley E Gunther, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Kayla Melissa Brown, Advocates for Human Potential; Non-Presenting Author: Xiaoxue Fu, University of South Carolina; Non-Presenting Author: Leigha Alexandra MacNeill, Northwestern University; Non-Presenting Author: Briana Ermanni, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Non-Presenting Author: Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Emotion-Primed Visual Search: Alternatives to the Dot Probe - Presenting Author: Sara Haas, University of Maryland, College Park