A growing number of studies have shown that cognitive biases are associated with the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety. Relative to healthy controls, individuals who are vulnerable for affective disorders prioritize their attentional focus on more negative stimuli and interpret ambiguous emotional information as more negative. A great effort has been dedicated in recent years to identifying the neural mechanisms of cognitive bias, especially attentional bias. However, studies examining how different types of cognitive biases are associated with each other and the neural mechanism of their interplay are still scarce. Therefore, in the current project, both measures of attentional bias and interpretation bias were included to assess the overlapping and distinct neural correlates. To provide a direct measure into an individual’s focus of attention, the study assessed attentional bias and interpretational bias with an eye tracking paradigm—the Scrambled Sentence Task. In this task, six words were presented on the screen in a single line. Participants were instructed to mentally unscramble the sentence to form a grammatically correct and meaningful statement using five of the six words as quickly as possible. Moreover, to investigate the neural mechanism of cognitive bias, resting-state functional MRI data were collected. Results showed that each of the cognitive biases has its own pattern of the functional connectivity between different regions involved in emotion processing and cognitive control whereas the left rostral prefrontal cortex was associated with both biases. The main clinical implication from this project is that interventions should target multiple cognitive biases.
","abstract_html":"<p>A growing number of studies have shown that cognitive biases are associated with the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety. Relative to healthy controls, individuals who are vulnerable for affective disorders prioritize their attentional focus on more negative stimuli and interpret ambiguous emotional information as more negative. A great effort has been dedicated in recent years to identifying the neural mechanisms of cognitive bias, especially attentional bias. However, studies examining how different types of cognitive biases are associated with each other and the neural mechanism of their interplay are still scarce. Therefore, in the current project, both measures of attentional bias and interpretation bias were included to assess the overlapping and distinct neural correlates. To provide a direct measure into an individual’s focus of attention, the study assessed attentional bias and interpretational bias with an eye tracking paradigm—the Scrambled Sentence Task. In this task, six words were presented on the screen in a single line. Participants were instructed to mentally unscramble the sentence to form a grammatically correct and meaningful statement using five of the six words as quickly as possible. Moreover, to investigate the neural mechanism of cognitive bias, resting-state functional MRI data were collected. Results showed that each of the cognitive biases has its own pattern of the functional connectivity between different regions involved in emotion processing and cognitive control whereas the left rostral prefrontal cortex was associated with both biases. The main clinical implication from this project is that interventions should target multiple cognitive biases.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Kassel, Dahlia"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychological Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Dr. Lin Fang"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023-04-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2023-04-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:24:24Z","subjects":["Attention","Cognition","Eye-Tracking Methodology","Anxiety","Depression","Cognitive Biases","Cognitive Science"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/736","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Dr. Lin Fang"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Kassel, Dahlia"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2028-04-02T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychological Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Attention","Cognition","Eye-Tracking Methodology","Anxiety","Depression","Cognitive Biases","Cognitive Science"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/736"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["A growing number of studies have shown that cognitive biases are associated with the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety. Relative to healthy controls, individuals who are vulnerable for affective disorders prioritize their attentional focus on more negative stimuli and interpret ambiguous emotional information as more negative. A great effort has been dedicated in recent years to identifying the neural mechanisms of cognitive bias, especially attentional bias. However, studies examining how different types of cognitive biases are associated with each other and the neural mechanism of their interplay are still scarce. Therefore, in the current project, both measures of attentional bias and interpretation bias were included to assess the overlapping and distinct neural correlates. To provide a direct measure into an individual’s focus of attention, the study assessed attentional bias and interpretational bias with an eye tracking paradigm—the Scrambled Sentence Task. In this task, six words were presented on the screen in a single line. Participants were instructed to mentally unscramble the sentence to form a grammatically correct and meaningful statement using five of the six words as quickly as possible. Moreover, to investigate the neural mechanism of cognitive bias, resting-state functional MRI data were collected. Results showed that each of the cognitive biases has its own pattern of the functional connectivity between different regions involved in emotion processing and cognitive control whereas the left rostral prefrontal cortex was associated with both biases. The main clinical implication from this project is that interventions should target multiple cognitive biases.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["SHARED AND UNIQUE PATTERNS OF RESTING-STATE FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY LINKED TO ATTENTIONAL AND INTERPRETATION BIASES"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Dr. Lin Fang"],"dc:creator":["Kassel, Dahlia"],"dc:date.available":["2028-04-02T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["A growing number of studies have shown that cognitive biases are associated with the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety. Relative to healthy controls, individuals who are vulnerable for affective disorders prioritize their attentional focus on more negative stimuli and interpret ambiguous emotional information as more negative. A great effort has been dedicated in recent years to identifying the neural mechanisms of cognitive bias, especially attentional bias. However, studies examining how different types of cognitive biases are associated with each other and the neural mechanism of their interplay are still scarce. Therefore, in the current project, both measures of attentional bias and interpretation bias were included to assess the overlapping and distinct neural correlates. To provide a direct measure into an individual’s focus of attention, the study assessed attentional bias and interpretational bias with an eye tracking paradigm—the Scrambled Sentence Task. In this task, six words were presented on the screen in a single line. Participants were instructed to mentally unscramble the sentence to form a grammatically correct and meaningful statement using five of the six words as quickly as possible. Moreover, to investigate the neural mechanism of cognitive bias, resting-state functional MRI data were collected. Results showed that each of the cognitive biases has its own pattern of the functional connectivity between different regions involved in emotion processing and cognitive control whereas the left rostral prefrontal cortex was associated with both biases. The main clinical implication from this project is that interventions should target multiple cognitive biases.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/736"],"dc:subject":["Attention","Cognition","Eye-Tracking Methodology","Anxiety","Depression","Cognitive Biases","Cognitive Science"],"dc:title":["SHARED AND UNIQUE PATTERNS OF RESTING-STATE FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY LINKED TO ATTENTIONAL AND INTERPRETATION BIASES"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Psychological Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:24:24Z"}