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Control of attention in bipolar disorder: Effects of perceptual load in processing task-irrelevant facial expressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

J. Grave ,
S. Soares ,
N. Madeira ,
P. Rodrigues ,
T. Santos ,
C. Roque ,
S. Morais ,
C. Pereira  and
V. Santos
J. Grave
Affiliation:
University of Aveiro, Department of Education, Aveiro, Portugal
S. Soares
Affiliation:
Center for Health Technology and Services Research CINTESIS-UA, Department of Education, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
N. Madeira*
Affiliation:
Coimbra Hospital and University Centre, Department of Psychiatry, Coimbra, Portugal
P. Rodrigues
Affiliation:
University of Beira Interior, Department of Psychology and Education, Covilhã, Portugal
T. Santos
Affiliation:
Baixo-Vouga Hospital Centre, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Aveiro, Portugal
C. Roque
Affiliation:
Coimbra Hospital and University Centre, Psychiatry, Coimbra, Portugal
S. Morais
Affiliation:
Coimbra Hospital and University Centre, Psychiatry, Coimbra, Portugal
C. Pereira
Affiliation:
Baixo-Vouga Hospital Centre, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Aveiro, Portugal
V. Santos
Affiliation:
Coimbra Hospital and University Centre, Psychiatry, Coimbra, Portugal
*
* Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Bipolar disorder (BD), along with schizophrenia, is one of the most severe psychiatric conditions and is correlated with attentional deficits and emotion dysregulation. Bipolar patients appear to be highly sensitive to the presence of emotional distractors. Yet, no study has investigated whether perceptual load modulates the interference of emotionally distracting information. Our main goal was to test whether bipolar patients are more sensitive to task-irrelevant emotional stimulus, even when the task demands a high amount of attentional resources.

Fourteen participants with BD I or BD II and 14 controls, age- and gender-matched, performed a target-letter discrimination task with emotional task-irrelevant stimulus (angry, happy and neutral facial expressions). Target-letters were presented among five distractor-letters, which could be the same (low perceptual load) or different (high perceptual load). Participants should discriminate the target-letter and ignore the facial expression. Response time and accuracy rate were analyzed.

Results

showed a greater interference of facial stimuli at high load than low load, confirming the effectiveness of perceptual load manipulation. More importantly, patients tarried significantly longer at high load. This is consistent with deficits in control of attention, showing that bipolar patients are more prone to distraction by task-irrelevant stimulus only when the task is more demanding. Moreover, for bipolar patients neutral and angry faces resulted in a higher interference with the task (longer response time), compared to controls, suggesting an attentional bias for neutral and threating social cues. Nevertheless, a more detailed investigation regarding the attentional impairments in social context in BD is needed.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Type
EV187
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 33 , Issue S1: Abstracts of the 24th European Congress of Psychiatry , March 2016 , pp. S335
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2016
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