Individual Differences in Vigilant Behavior, Attention Bias to Emotions, and Cardiovascular Correlates

Abstract

Social vigilance refers to the process of monitoring one’s social environment for potential threats or monitoring a threat to determine a change in status that may require coping. Vigilance itself may be an outcome of attentional bias for ambiguous and negative social cues. Recent work has examined the effects of vigilant behavior on cardiovascular reactivity as a potential health-moderating pathway; however, a connection between attention bias and vigilance has yet to be established. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between individual differences in social vigilance, attention bias for negative social cues, and cardiovascular reactivity. A diverse sample of 96 young adults (55 women) completed an observational laboratory study involving a baseline followed by an attention bias dot-probe task and later a 5-min video observation period. Participants were selected based on outer tertile scores on the social vigilance questionnaire to represent high and low individual differences in social vigilance. An incentive condition was created by informing half the participants that their $5 payment is contingent on their performance in the attention bias task (high incentive) while half are told they will receive payment regardless of performance (low incentive). Thus, the study is a 2 (high, low vigilance) X 2 (Female, male gender) X 2 (high, low incentive) experimental design. The attention bias task is a 15-minute program wherein reaction times to a standardized set of emotional faces is performed. A Tobii eye tracker is used to quantify gaze time, with impedance cardiography and a GE Carescape BP monitor used to assess cardiovascular reactivity throughout the study. Separately, the NH H-Probe(S) type was found to have a decrease in reaction time by 2.3/ms of those in the high incentive condition, t(935) = -2.01, p<0.05. Individuals in the high-incentive group, told they were to receive $5 dollars had a decrease in reaction time when presented with a happy stimulus. Incentive type and SVQ did not interact to predict reaction time to any stimulus valence-types. There was no interaction between incentive, SVQ, or stimulus valence. Social Vigilance did however predict a lowering of reaction time, quicker responses, for vigilance towards threat equations by 4.408/ms, t(1066)=-2.072, p<.04. A significant interaction between incentive type, vigilance, and gender was discovered F(1,65) = 7.99, p< 0.01 for systolic blood pressure during the task. During rest, a significant main effect of vigilance on systolic blood pressure arose at F(1,61)=5.221, p<0.05. Contributions to the understanding of vigilance as a consequent behavior from attention bias and as a moderating factor of stress effects on cardiovascular reactivity are discussed.