Attentional bias to violent images in survivors of dating violence

Abstract

This study investigated the time-course characteristics of attentional bias, such as vigilance and maintenance, towards violent stimuli in dating violence (DV) survivors. DV survivors with PTSD symptoms (DV-PTSD group; n=14), DV survivors without PTSD symptoms (Trauma Control group; n=14), and individuals who were never exposed to dating violence (NDV group; n=15) viewed slides that presented four categories of images (violent, dysphoric, positive, and neutral) per slide, for ten seconds. Our results revealed that the DV-PTSD group spent more time on violent stimuli than did the Trauma Control or NDV groups. The DV survivors, both with and without PTSD symptoms, spent more time on dysphoric stimuli and less time on happy stimuli than did the NDV group. In addition to the effects of PTSD, researchers should also be considering the effects of simple traumatic exposure.

Keywords:

• Dating violence survivors
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Attentional bias
• Eye-tracking

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No. 2010-0015788)

Notes

¹We conducted a 3 (Groups: DV-PTSD, Trauma Control, NDV)×4 (Stimulus Valence: violent, dysphoric, happy, neutral) repeated-measures ANOVA to examine whether group differences existed regarding directions of first fixations (attentional vigilance) across stimulus valences and found a significant main effect of Stimulus Valence, F(3, 120)=11.20, p<.001, η_p ²=.22. Follow-up comparisons revealed participants’ gazes were significantly directed more towards violent stimuli than towards dysphoric, happy, or neutral stimuli (all ps<.05). No significant interactions were found, indicating that the three groups did not differ with respect to the location of first fixation across stimulus valences.