Attentional Breadth Task

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 27, 2018

Last Modified: January 26, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements an Attentional Breadth Task procedure (Bosman et al, 2009; Grol & Raedt, 2014). The procedure takes advantage of related positions located on two circles of different radii around a center stimulus (=> one circle is closer than the other) to assess effects of attentional broading/narrowing.

The center stimuli in this script are faces displaying three different emotions. The script can be adapted to run different stimuli.

References

Bosmans,G.,Braet,C.,Koster,E.,and DeRaedt,R.(2009). Attachment, security and attentional breadth toward the attachment figure in middle childhood. J. Clin.ChildAdolesc.Psychol. 38, 872–882. doi:10.1080/15374410903258926

Grol, M., & Raedt, R. D. (2014). Effects of centralStim1 mood on attentional breadth for centralStimal stimuli. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1277. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01277

Duration

15 minutes

Description

Participants very briefly see pictures of faces that display 3 different emotions (happy, neutral, sad) in the center of the screen. Together with each face, a black circle is presented in one of 16 locations around the center face. The 16 locations are located on two circles around the center face: 8 locations are on a circle closer to the center; 8 locations are on a circle further away from the center. Each location on the inner circle is 'paired' with a location on the outer circle.

After the face-location-circle display vanishes (68ms), participants are asked two questions (always in the same order): 1. Select the emotion of the presented face 2. Select the axis that the black circle was presented on

Procedure

(1) Practice1: 8 trials with a display duration of 250ms

(2) Practice2: 8 trials with a display duration of 68ms
(2 faces are used during practice; one female and one male)

(3) Test: 3 blocks of 48 trials each

- each block runs 8 repetition of the 6 trialtypes
(centralStim1-near, centralStim1-far, centralStim2-near, centralStim2-far, centralStim3-near, centralStim3-far)

- each trialtype selects the target axis randomly without replacement from the 8 different axis
(thus each trialtype runs each axis once per block)

- each trialtype selects the face randomly without replacement from the 8 different faces
(thus each trialtype runs each face one per block)

Trial Sequence:
fixation (iti: 1000ms) -> face/dots/circle display (68ms) -> centralStim (here: emotion) selection trial (unlimited time) -> axis selection trial (unlimited time)

Stimuli

Central Stimuli are taken from the NimStim set of facial expression database:
Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J. W., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., … Nelson, C. (2009).
The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants.
Psychiatry Research, 168(3), 242–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2008.05.006

• 8 faces per expression (altogether 8 faces used), all closed mouth
• 4 male and 4 female faces per expression (various ethnicities)
• images were cut to display main part of face only

The stimuli can be exchanged under section Editable Stimuli

if more or fewer than 3 categories of central stimuli should be run,
the trials called as well as instruction trials need to be adjusted accordingly.

Instructions

provided by Millisecond - can be edited under section Editable Instructions

Summary Data

File Name: attentionalbreadthtask_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

Raw Data

File Name: attentionalbreadthtask_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.