Combined behavioural markers of cognitive biases are associated with anhedonia

ABSTRACT

Biases towards negative information, as well as away from positive information, are associated with psychopathology. Examining biases in multiple processes has been theorised to be more predictive than examining bias in any process alone. Anhedonia is a core symptom of psychopathology and predictive of future psychopathological symptoms. Finding that combined biases are associated with anhedonia would advance knowledge of the nature of emotional processing biases and the value of objective performance-based measures for identifying early risk markers. Participants (N = 139) completed tasks that assess latency bias (dot probe) and biased recognition (two-alternative forced-choice) of emotional information, as well as an anhedonia measure. An index was computed for each task’s performance reflecting biased processing of positive and negative words. Only combined biases on both tasks were associated with anhedonia. Attentional bias was positively associated with anhedonia, but only when recognition bias for emotional words was high. Thus, assessing biases in multiple domains increased sensitivity to uncover relationships between emotional processing biases and anhedonic symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Dot probe
• accuracy
• latency
• attentional bias
• anhedonia

Acknowledgements

Portions of the research reported in this article were previously reported as part of the first author’s master’s thesis. The authors would like to thank Jared Keeley for his helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. These are iterations of a 140 Hz refresh rate. E-prime logged the following presentation duration ranges: 135–136 ms for the initial fixation cross; 7–8 ms for the target word; 49–51 ms for the mask; and 999–1000 ms for the second fixation cross.

2. b represents an unstandardised coefficient. DP trial RTs >2000 ms were recoded as 2000 ms and included in analyses, as delayed responding may be a valid indicator of biased processing of emotional information. The interaction effect is reduced (p = .07) if trials with RTs >2000 ms are removed entirely.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this article was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under a Loan Repayment Award and grant number [R15MH101573] (PI: E. S. W.). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.