Surely you remember, at some point in your life, being admonished to “pay attention”.
Having your cognitive focus drift off-topic is an everyday occurrence. But does the opposite occur? Can we pay too much attention to a topic? How about an emotion or even a body part?
According to neuroscientists the short answer is, “yes”!
They call it attentional bias and emerging research suggestions it can contribute to anxiety disorders, emotional depression and possibly even chronic pain.
Using eye-tracking technology researchers have demonstrated that people with negative attentional bias typically shift their gaze (their cognitive focus or attention) to images or even words that have a negative valance.
Furthermore these eye-tracking studies also suggest that people with maladaptive attentional bias, spend much more time fixated on negatively valanced stimuli. This was interpreted to mean they had trouble disengaging from negativity.
This combination of excessive gravitation towards and impaired ability to disengage from negative stimuli has obvious ramifications for emotional quality of life and well being.
This maladaptive attentional bias has a neuroanatomical basis located in a region of the brain known as the anterior cingulate cortex, specifically areas 32, 24, and 25.
These brain regions are reciprocally activated when a person is in a positive state of mind versus a “bad place”.
These research findings led neuroscientists to develop techniques to help people reverse negative attentional bias through training. Know as Attentional Bias Modification or ABM.
One method of ABM is to present a person with positive and negative stimuli and have them as fast as they can, pick the positive stimulus.
The Simple ABMod App presents images of 4 faces, one with a positive expression and the other 3 with negative expressions.
The total time and number of correct choices are recorded.
Research suggests, that with repetition, training focus on positively valanced stimuli may reduce a person’s attentional bias towards negativity.
This shift from negative to positive attentional bias, often has a spillover effect which may improve emotional well being.