Abstract
Results of several studies were interpreted as demonstrating that compared with neutral mood,positive mood does enhance attentional engagement bias to positive stimuli.However,due to the application of dot-probe and emotional stroop paradigm which can’t disassociate engagement bias and disengagement bias,it is possible that these results indicating the benifical effect of positive mood on disengagement bias rather than engagement bias.In other words,intead of making positive stimuli more capable of capture and draw attention relative to neutral stimuli,postive mood may result in less disengagement from the positive stimuli compared to neutral stimul.The current study aims to examine whether postive mood enhance engagement bias or disengagement bias.
50 participates (30 female) participated this study. They were randomly assigned to the two mood-induced conditions:positive mood condition(N=25) vs neutral mood condition(N=25).A positive or neutral mood manipulation was followed by the modified dot probe task.In the modified dot probe task, two words are presented simultaneously for a short time at the top and bottom locations.After the offset of the two words,a dot emerge at the location of one of the two words.Participants are instructed to detect the location of the dot.The task consists of three kinds of trials:(1) the congruent trial ,in which a positive word and a neutral word are presented,followed by a dot emerging at the location of the positive word; (2) the incongruent trial,in which a positive word and a neutral word are presented,followed by a dot emerging at the location of the neutral word; (3)the neutral-neutral trial,in which two neutral words are presented,followed by a dot emerging at the location of the one of the neutral word.
The 2(incongruent/congruent)×2(mood condition:positive /neutral) mixed-design ANOVA,with the mood condition being the between-subject variable,reveals that the interaction between the two variables is significant.To further illustrate the interaction effect,the attentional bias score is calculated by subtracting the mean reaction time of the congruent trial from the mean reaction time of the incongruent trial.The independent-sample t-test reveals that the attentional bias score of the the positive mood group is significantly larger than that of the neutral mood group,thus replicating the results of previous studies.
The2(neutral-neutral/congruent)×2(mood condition:positive /neutral) mixed-design ANOVA,with the mood condition being the between-subject variable,reveals that the interaction between the two variables and the main effects of the two variables are all not significant,indicating that both neutral mood group and positive mood group show no engagement bias,thus there is no beneficial effect of postive mood on engagement bias.
The 2(incongruent/neutral-neural)×2(mood condition:positive /neutral) mixed-design ANOVA, with the mood condition being the between-subject variable,reveals that the interaction between the two variables is significant.To further illustrate the interaction effect,the disengagement bias score is calculated by subtracting the mean reaction time of the neutral-neutral trial from the mean reaction time of the incongruent trial.The independent-sample t-test reveals reveals that the disengagement bias score of the the positive mood group is significantly larger than that of the neutral mood group,indicating that positive mood enhance disengagement bias .
In summary,the results of this study suggest that positive mood enhance disengagement bias instead of engagement bias to positive stimuli. These results are further discussed in the light of hedonic contingency model.
Key words
positive mood /
positive stimuli /
attentional bias /
attentional engagement /
attentional disengagement
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Han-Yue LIU.
Positive mood Enhance Attentional Bias to Positive Stimuli:Engagement Bias versus Disengagement Bias[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2015, 38(4): 839-845
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