The effects of reward and loss anticipation on attentional bias for reward related stimuli

Jedras, Pawel, Jones, Andrew, Stancak, Andrej ORCID: 0000-0003-3323-3305 and Field, Matt (2019) The effects of reward and loss anticipation on attentional bias for reward related stimuli. APPETITE, 133. pp. 93-100.

Text Jedras et al reward expectancy FINAL 200818 rev_MF _PJ.docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (32MB)

Abstract

Attentional biases for reward-related (e.g., food, alcohol) cues are moderated by the expectation of imminent reward availability, but the psychological mechanisms that underlie this effect are unclear. We report two studies in which we investigated if effects of reward gain anticipation are specific to the type of reward that is anticipated, and if anticipation of loss has comparable effects to anticipation of reward gain. We used an eye tracking task to investigate the effects of anticipation of gain (experiment 1) or loss (experiment 2) of alcohol and chocolate on attentional bias for alcohol and chocolate pictures using full crossover designs; the effects of uncertain outcomes were investigated in both experiments. Results indicated robust effects of anticipation of reward gain and uncertainty on attentional bias that were outcome-specific (experiment 1). However attentional bias was not influenced by loss anticipation (experiment 2). Our findings demonstrate that anticipation of reward gain increases attentional bias for the type of reward that is anticipated, but anticipation of loss does not influence attentional bias.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Anticipation, Attentional bias, Gain, Loss, Reward
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	19 Nov 2018 16:44
Last Modified:	16 Dec 2022 06:05
DOI:	10.1016/j.appet.2018.10.007
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3028938