Dataset Information

The effect of optimistic expectancies on attention bias: Neural and behavioral correlates.

ABSTRACT: Optimism bias and positive attention bias are important features of healthy information processing. Recent findings suggest dynamic bidirectional optimism-attention interactions, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain to be identified. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, therefore, investigated the neural mechanisms underlying causal effects of optimistic expectancies on attention. We hypothesized that expectancies guide attention to confirmatory evidence in the environment, with enhanced salience and executive control network (SN/ECN) activity for unexpected information. Moreover, based on previous findings, we anticipated optimistic expectancies to more strongly impact attention and SN/ECN activity than pessimistic expectancies. Expectancies were induced with visual cues in 50 participants; subsequent attention to reward and punishment was assessed in a visual search task. As hypothesized, cues shortened reaction times to expected information, and unexpected information enhanced SN/ECN activity. Notably, these effects were stronger for optimistic than pessimistic expectancy cues. Our findings suggest that optimistic expectancies involve particularly strong predictions of reward, causing automatic guidance of attention to reward and great surprise about unexpected punishment. Such great surprise may be counteracted by visual avoidance of the punishing evidence, as revealed by prior evidence, thereby reducing the need to update (over)optimistic reward expectancies.

SUBMITTER: Singh L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7162893 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The effect of optimistic expectancies on attention bias: Neural and behavioral correlates.

Singh Laura L Schüpbach Laurent L Moser Dominik A DA Wiest Roland R Hermans Erno J EJ Aue Tatjana T

Scientific reports 20200416 1

Optimism bias and positive attention bias are important features of healthy information processing. Recent findings suggest dynamic bidirectional optimism-attention interactions, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain to be identified. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, therefore, investigated the neural mechanisms underlying causal effects of optimistic expectancies on attention. We hypothesized that expectancies guide attention to confirmatory evidence in the ...[more]

PMID: 32300214

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Individuals tend to have an optimism bias, processing desirable information more frequently than undesirable information. However, people who have been diagnosed with depression often have a more pessimistic view of the future. A recent study suggests that future expectations in individuals with dysphoria become more optimistic when asked to make optimistic future predictions about the future. In the present study, we investigated the differential effects of induced optimism training which making optimistic future prediction to change future beliefs in normal participants with various levels of dysphoria (low, mild, high). METHODS:We recruited normal participants (n?=?69) from a local university students and divided participants into three groups (low, mild, high dysphoria) by measuring dysphoric mood. These three groups were assigned to the induced optimism training or control condition. After the training, participants performed the two-stage belief updating task. In the first stage, participants estimated their personal probability of experiencing adverse events while being presented with the average probability of the event occurring to a living person. This information could be desirable for participants(when presented with a probability that was below their estimation) or undesirable (when presented with a probability that was above their estimation). To assess how desirable versus undesirable information influenced beliefs, participants estimated their personal probability of experiencing the events again in the second stage. The amount of update error was calculated as the difference between the estimates in the first stage and the second stage. The difference between the errors was classified as the update bias. RESULTS:After the induced optimism training, individuals with the mild dysphoria demonstrated a higher update bias than low (p?<?.001) and the high dysphoria (p?<?.05) group in induced optimism condition. Significant differences were not found in control group. Results indicates that individuals in the mild dysphoria group showed an increased update bias after being exposed to the induced optimism training Dysphoric mood and trait optimism remained unchanged in both the experimental and control groups. CONCLUSIONS:Results suggest that induced optimism training has potential to change individuals with mild dysphoria perceptions' about the future.

Dataset Information

The effect of optimistic expectancies on attention bias: Neural and behavioral correlates.

Publications

The effect of optimistic expectancies on attention bias: Neural and behavioral correlates.

Similar Datasets

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