Dot Probe Task [34333]

This article applies to:

E-Prime 3.0

Detail

Experiment Author: Psychology Software Tools, Inc.

This Dot Probe Task is a variation of the original task examined by Staugaard (2009) and is used to assess attentional bias.

In this task, participants are presented with a fixation. The fixation is followed by a pair of faces for a brief amount of time then by a dot where the faces appeared. 

Faces are paired as either Emotional-Neutral or Neutral-Neutral. Each type of pair is shown an equal number of times. However, the emotional faces vary (i.e., angry, happy, worried, etc.). When a Neutral-Neutral pair occurs, two different images appear (one with the mouth closed and another with the mouth open). Each type of emotion has an equal chance of appearing on the left or right side relative to the fixation.

Participants are asked to identify which side relative to the fixation the dot appears on by using the Left and Right Arrow keys on the keyboard. This task contains 4 practice trials and 20 critical trials. Feedback is only presented on practice trials.

A trial is congruent when the dot appears on the same side that the non-neutral face appears. A trial is incongruent when the dot appears on the same side as the neutral face.

Staugaard, Søren. (2009). Reliability of two versions of the dot-probe task using photographic faces. Psychology Science Quarterly. 51.