Attentional Bias for Exercise-Related Images

Abstract

This research examined attentional bias toward exercise-related images using a visual probe task. It was hypothesized that more-active participants would display attentional bias toward the exercise-related images. The results showed that men displayed attentional bias for the exercise images. There was a significant interaction of activity level by gender, and simple slopes analysis showed that active women displayed attentional bias toward the exercise-related images and inactive women displayed attentional bias toward the control images. A similar analysis with explicit attention to the pictures as the outcome variable was not significant. These findings confirm that attention for exercise-related images can be captured automatically regardless of whether people report they are attending to them.

Key words:

• Exercise
• Implicit processes
• Visual probe

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tanya R. Berry

The first author is supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program and by a Population Health Investigator award from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. Please address correspondence concerning this article to Tanya R. Berry, E-424 Van Vliet Centre, Faculty of Physical Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H9.