Graduation Term

2018

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Psychology: Clinical-Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Suejung Han

Abstract

Attentional bias has been examined as one of the cognitive vulnerability factors for various psychopathology such as disordered eating. Attentional biases are important to examine as potential targets of interventions. Past research has demonstrated mixed findings on whether or not restrained eaters show cognitive biases (e.g., attentional sensitivity) toward words related to foods (Brooks et al., 2011; Dobson & Dozois, 2004; Francis, Stewart, & Hounsell, 1997). This study examined attentional bias to foods among restrained eaters using a computer based program, Mousetracker (Freeman & Ambady, 2010), that provided various indicators (i.e., reaction time, maximum deviations, and area under the curves) of attentional bias (vs. reaction time only in traditional attentional bias research). Counter to the hypotheses, results suggested no attentional bias to food words among restrained eaters. However, it seems that females tend to have an attentional bias to food words.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

http://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2018.Hodge.B

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Psychology Commons

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