The traces of imagination: early attention bias toward positively imagined stimuli.

ABSTRACT: Positively imagined activities may capture visual attention due to an increase in positive value. Increasing attention toward activities, in turn, may prove useful for clinical interventions aiming to motivate behavioral engagement. Employing a within-subject experimental design, we examined the effect of positive imagery on attention using a visual probe task with concurrent eye tracking. Adults from the general population (N = 54) imagined performing activities involving visually presented objects in a positive (focusing on the positive emotional impact) or neutral (focusing on a neutral circumstance) manner. They then completed a visual probe task using picture stimuli depicting one object per type of imagery. Positive compared to neutral imagery increased self-reported behavioral motiv

SUBMITTER: Bar HE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9485787 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature