Exploring the fMRI based neural correlates of the dot probe task and its modulation by sex and body odor

Human attention is both stimulus and control driven, i.e. both the salience of stimuli and the motivation / goal of the perceiver have an impact in the control of attention (Yantis and Egeth, 1999; Corbetta and Shulman, 2002). To investigate such attention capture especially with respect to stimulus driven attention, the dot probe task (MacLeod et al., 1986) was developed which assesses attentional biases induced by the presence of emotional and non-emotional stimuli. Commonly, participants have to detect a non-emotional target (dot probe) which is preceded by irrelevant cues.

Source: Psychoneuroendocrinology - September 6, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Jonas Hornung, Hannes Noack, Lydia Kogler, Birgit Derntl Source Type: research