The relationship between dispositional attention to feelings and visual attention to emotion

Journal Pre-proof The relationship between dispositional attention to feelings and visual attention to emotion

Anna Bujanow, Charlott Maria Bodenschatz, Monika Szymanska, Anette Kersting, Lauriane Vulliez-Coady, Thomas Suslow PII:

S0278-5846(19)30887-5

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.109882

Reference:

PNP 109882

To appear in:

Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry

Received date:

22 October 2019

Revised date:

31 January 2020

Accepted date:

31 January 2020

Please cite this article as: A. Bujanow, C.M. Bodenschatz, M. Szymanska, et al., The relationship between dispositional attention to feelings and visual attention to emotion, Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry(2019), https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.109882

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© 2019 Published by Elsevier.

Journal Pre-proof The Relationship between Dispositional Attention to Feelings and Visual Attention to Emotion

Anna Bujanow

a, #

, Charlott Maria Bodenschatz a, Monika Szymanska b, Anette Kersting a, Lauriane Vulliez-Coady

b,c

, Thomas Suslow a,*

Author Note

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Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University of Leipzig, Leipzig,

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a

Germany

Neurosciences Lab, EA481, UBFC, Université de Franche-Comté (UFC), Besançon, France

c

Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Regional Hospital, Besançon,

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b

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France.

Current Address: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig,

Germany

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#

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Declarations of interest: none

* Corresponding author at: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University of Leipzig, Semmelweisstraße 10, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] leipzig.de

Journal2 Pre-proof Abstract Attention to feelings is a core dimension of individual differences in the perception of one’s emotions. It concerns the frequency with which own emotions are attended to. The aim of the present eye-tracking investigation was to examine the relationship of dispositional attention to feelings with early and late attentional processes in the visual perception of emotional information. Attentional orientation was assessed in a sample of healthy women (N = 91) using eye-tracking during a free viewing task in which images with positive, negative and

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neutral content were shown simultaneously. Pictures were taken from the Besançon Affective Picture Set. State and trait affect, depression, and intelligence of participants were controlled.

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In our sample, attention to feelings was not related to positive affect, negative affect,

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depression or intelligence. Attention to feelings was negatively correlated with entry times

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for all emotional picture types. Moreover, attention to feelings was positively correlated with dwell time on positive images and negatively correlated with dwell time on neutral images.

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Our data indicate that devoting habitually attention to one’s feelings is linked to an enhanced

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initial orientation of attention towards emotional scenes, irrespective of affective valence.

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Dispositional attention to feelings might also be associated with an attentional preference for emotional over neutral visual stimuli. The present findings on general individual differences in attention to feelings could have important implications for future clinical research on attentional biases.

Keywords: attention to feelings, emotional awareness, eye-tracking, gaze behavior, emotional images, visual attention.

Journal3 Pre-proof Over the last decades, individual differences research on perceiving and understanding emotions was mainly centered on emotional intelligence and alexithymia (Baudry et al., 2018; Luminet et al., 2018). The latter constructs are multidimensional and overlapping and differ in terms of their theoretical origin. Emotional intelligence, as typically defined, concerns a set of skills comprising the perception of emotion, its use to facilitate thought, understanding and managing emotion (Mayer et al., 2003). The concept of alexithymia evolved from clinical observations and refers primarily to a diminished ability to

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identify and verbalize emotions and an externally oriented cognitive style (Taylor et al., 2003). Even though the concept was initially deficit-oriented there is clear evidence that

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alexithymic features are best conceptualized as dimensional traits (Parker et al., 2008). Both

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constructs, emotional intelligence, and alexithymia were subjects of controversial debate and

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have been criticized for being broad, elusive or confounded with negative affect (Lane et al., 2015; Zeidner et al., 2008). Numerous studies based on factor or cluster analysis have shown

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that responses to measures of emotional intelligence, alexithymia, and emotional awareness

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form distinct dimensions: emotional clarity and attention to emotions (Gohm and Clore,

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2000; Palmieri et al., 2009).

Thus, two core dimensions of individual differences in the perception of one’s emotions relate to the extent to which own emotions are recognized, labeled and characterized and the frequency with which own emotions are attended to (Boden and Thompson, 2015). According to results from a recent meta-analysis, attention to emotions and clarity of emotions do not represent independent dimensions of emotion perception but appear to be moderately positively associated (Boden and Thompson, 2017). Possibly, enhanced attention to emotions may contribute to increased emotional clarity. Clarity of emotions has been found to be related to less negative affect (Gohm and Clore, 2002), less depressive symptoms (Kennedy et al., 2010), and enhanced subjective well-being (Lischetzke

Journal4 Pre-proof et al., 2012). In contrast, it was observed that attention to emotions is largely independent of level of depressive symptoms (Salovey et al., 2002), negative affect (Gohm and Clore, 2002), affect balance and subjective well-being (Lischetzke et al., 2012). Habitually paying attention to one’s emotions appears to be per se neither beneficial nor detrimental to affective wellbeing. Its functionality seems to depend on a personal condition, the ability to regulate emotions (Lischetzke and Eid, 2003). It has been argued that emotional intelligence and alexithymia should be related to the

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perception and use of external emotional information, i.e. originating outside of the body (Mayer and Salovey, 1995; Taylor and Bagby, 2004). Coffey et al. (2003) observed that

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individuals devoting habitually more attention to their emotional experiences paid more

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attention to emotion words in a Stroop task. In contrast, clarity of emotions was not

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associated with attention to emotional words. It seems reasonable to suppose that different cognitive functions of emotion processing could underlie attention to and clarity of emotions:

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processes of attention allocation and processes of recognition and verbalization. Interestingly,

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in a free viewing task externally oriented thinking but not difficulties in identifying or

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describing emotions affected attention deployment to simultaneously presented emotional pictures (Wiebe et al., 2017). In this study, externally oriented thinking which indicates low dispositional attention to and valuing of own emotions (see Gohm and Clore, 2000) predicted reduced sustained attention allocation to dysphoric information. Difficulties in describing emotions which implies low emotional clarity (Gohm and Clore, 2000) was found to be related to deficits in the identification of emotions in facial expressions (Ihme et al., 2014; Parker et al., 2005). Lischetzke et al. (2001) developed scales for measuring clarity of and attention to emotions with a narrow definition of the constructs which they called Clarity of feelings and Attention to feelings. Clarity of feelings refers here to the extent to which one’s feelings are

Journal5 Pre-proof in general identified and can be described, whereas attention to feelings relates to the habitual tendency to attend to one’s feelings. This construct of attention to feelings is more specific compared, for example, to that of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey et al., 1995) which comprises also accepting and valuing feelings positively and letting oneself experience them fully. In the scales of Lischetzke et al. (2001) the valence of feelings is not specified, global ratings concerning feeling perception are required. Up to now, only a few studies have investigated attentional processes as a function of

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emotional intelligence or alexithymia using eye-tracking technology. Eye-tracking has the advantage of assessing the focus and time course of visual attention systematically and with a

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high degree of accuracy (Findlay and Gilchrist, 2003). Apart from the above-mentioned study

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on alexithymia and attention deployment (Wiebe et al., 2017), two other eye-tracking

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investigations examined the effects of emotional intelligence on attention to emotional information. Lea et al. (2018) identified relationships of trait emotional intelligence with

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attention to positive emotional stimuli. More specifically, individuals with high emotionality

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fixated longer on the happy faces in crowds of faces and manifested a visual preference for

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positive compared to threatening and neutral scenes. Emotionality relates to the emotional intelligence facets of trait empathy, emotion expression and emotion perception (Petrides, 2009). It was concluded that attentional preference for positive rather than negative stimuli could function as protection from stressors and promote mental health in individuals high in emotional intelligence. The latter findings were inconsistent with those from another eyetracking study on trait emotional intelligence (Davis, 2018). In this study, emotionality was associated with an early bias towards negative faces relative to neutral faces. The divergent results may, at least in part, be explained by methodological differences between the studies, in particular, the different viewing paradigms. However, in the previous studies allocation of visual attention was not analyzed as a function of the two basic dimensions emotional clarity

Journal6 Pre-proof and attention to emotions underlying emotional intelligence, alexithymia, and emotional awareness. The results from our study concerning a presumed effect of dispositional attention to feelings on visual attention in normal individuals could have substantial implications for clinical eye-tracking research on attentional biases. Control of individual differences in attention to feelings could help specifying our understanding of illness-related alterations of attention. Attentional biases are assumed to represent important vulnerability factors for the

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development, maintenance, and recurrence of anxiety and affective disorders (Cisler and Koster, 2010; Gotlib and Joormann, 2010). It has been shown, for example, that previously

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depressed individuals allocate early more attention to dysphoric images than healthy controls

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(Sears et al., 2011). Acutely depressed patients were found to maintain their attention longer

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on sad stimuli compared to healthy individuals (Duque and Vazquez, 2015). Socially phobic individuals were observed to initially orient their gaze towards threatening information more

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frequently than non-anxious individuals (Gamble and Rapee, 2010). The question arises if

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and to what extent early and late processes of attentional biases in patients with emotional

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disorders might be affected by general individual differences in habitual attention to feelings. The aim of the present investigation was to examine the relationship between narrowly defined individual differences in dispositional attention to feelings and visual attention to emotional information in healthy individuals. To this end, a free viewing paradigm with the presentation of emotional and neutral pictures was administered which allows to assess early and late processes of attention allocation. In the present study, we focused our analyses of gaze behavior on entry time and dwell time. Entry time reflects the time needed to orient the gaze toward a picture type. When multiple images are presented simultaneously, entry time gives an indication of initial preference. Dwell time indicates how long a participant spent looking at a certain picture type and can be interpreted as an index of

Journal7 Pre-proof sustained attention or interest in a free viewing task (Burriss et al., 2014). Dwell time reflects more persistent patterns of attention engagement. It was hypothesized that dispositional attention to feelings increases on the one hand the speed of initial orientation of gaze toward emotional images. On the other hand, it was expected that it leads to longer viewing of emotional images. Since gender is known to influence attention to feelings (Mankus et al., 2016) we included only women in our study to examine a gender homogeneous sample. We assessed

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state and trait affectivity as well as depression of study participants because visual attention has shown to be biased toward mood-congruent stimuli (Becker and Leinenger, 2011) and, in

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particular, level of depressive symptoms has been found to be associated with reduced

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sustained attention for positive stimuli and heightened sustained attention for negative stimuli

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in healthy individuals (Bodenschatz et al., 2018). Moreover, participants’ verbal intelligence was also measured in our study since verbal intelligence shows correlations with emotional

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intelligence (Mayer et al., 2008). The relations of attention to feelings and clarity of feelings

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with affectivity, depression and verbal intelligence were explored in our sample.

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In our study, we presented emotional and neutral images taken from a novel, standardized affective picture database, the Besançon Affective Picture Adult-Set (BAPSAdult; Szymanska et al., 2019a). The BAPS consists of photographs from four thematic categories: three with emotional content (distress, comfort, and complicity-joy) and one category with emotionally neutral content. Distress is defined here as an emotion referring to unpleasant and upsetting experiences and has a clear negative valence (Monin et al., 2010). Comfort is a positive emotion felt when proximity or support of others is attained (Kolcaba et al., 2006). Complicity relates to interpersonally shared joy, implicates reciprocity and intimacy and has a clear positive valence (Belsky and Cassidy, 1994).

Journal8 Pre-proof Method Participants Recruitment of participants took place via public and online notices. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were assessed by telephone interviews. Individuals interested in the study were screened to check criteria for exclusion, such as past or present mental disorders, substance abuse, neurological disorders, head injury, and wearing of eyeglasses or contact lenses. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I, German version:

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Ackenheil et al., 1999) was used to rule out psychiatric disorders. Eighteen women were excluded from our study because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. Women were

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excluded for the following reasons: presence of a mental disorder (n = 4), wearing of

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eyeglasses or contact lenses (visual impairment) (n = 4), surgical eye operation in the past (n

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= 3), age not between 18 and 30 years (n = 2), regular use of psychoactive substances within the last six months (n = 2), not native German speaker (n = 1), presence of a neurological

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disorder (n = 1), and current intake of psychotropic medication (n = 1).

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The final sample comprised 91 women with a mean age of 24 years (SD = 3.20, age

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range: 18-30 years). Against the background that Wiebe et al. (2017) revealed a correlation of r = -.29 between externally oriented thinking and dwell time on depression-related pictures in a free viewing task, we determined the statistical power of our study using the program G*Power (Faul et al., 2013). To detect a medium effect of r = 0.29 with an alpha value of 0.05, one-tailed, and a total sample size of 91, the statistical power is 0.88. The mean duration of participants' school education was 12.3 years (SD = 0.57). 74% of the sample were students, 18% employed, and 8% unemployed. All participants were native speakers and had normal vision as determined by Snellen eye chart. The study was approved by the relevant ethics committee at the University and conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration ( World Medical Association, 2013). All participants gave written informed consent after the

Journal9 Pre-proof experimental details were explained to them. Subjects received a financial compensation for their participation.

Measures Attention to and clarity of feelings. The WEFG Skalen zur Wahrnehmung eigener und fremder Gefühle was administered to assess the dispositional attention to and the clarity of one’s own feelings (Lischetzke et al., 2001). Six items assess attention to feelings (e.g., “I

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notice my feelings”) and 6 items measure clarity of feelings (e.g., “I can name my feelings”). The items were rated on 4-point frequency scales (ranging from almost never to almost

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always). In previous studies, both scores were highly reliable (Lischetzke et al., 2001;

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Lischetzke and Eid, 2003; Lischetzke et al., 2011). There is evidence of factorial and

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concurrent validity of the scales of the WEFG (Lischetzke et al., 2001).

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State and trait affect. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al.,

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1988; German version: Krohne et al., 1996) was applied to measure state and trait positive

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affect (P) and state and trait negative affect (N). The PANAS consists of 10 negative and 10 positive adjectives, rated on a five-point scale (1 = not at all, 5 = extremely). In the trait version of the PANAS, participants were asked to describe how they feel in general, whereas in the state version they were asked to report how they feel at the present moment.

Depression. Depressive symptoms of participants were measured with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II; Beck et al., 1998; German version: Hautzinger et al., 2006). The BDI-II is composed of 21 items relating to symptoms of depression such as hopelessness and irritability, negative cognitions as well as physical symptoms. The BDI-II asks respondents

Journal10Pre-proof about how they have been feeling throughout the past 2 weeks. Each item consists of four response options, which are graded by severity.

Verbal intelligence. The Mehrfachwahl-Wortschatz-Intelligenztest version B (MWT-B; Lehrl, 2005) was administered to assess participants’ verbal intelligence. The MWT-B includes 37 items and has no time restrictions. The items consist of lines, each comprising four pronounceable pseudo-words (fictitious words) and one real word. The subject is asked

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to find the correct response. Raw scores (number of items answered correctly) are converted

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to IQ-scores.

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Eye-tracking Experiment

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Eye-tracking apparatus. In the free viewing task, stimuli were presented on a 22-inch TFT widescreen monitor (resolution: 1680×1050) running with an SMI-customized Dell laptop

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(IView X laptop). Eye movements were registered with an IView X RED250 remote system

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(SensoMotoric Instruments - SMI), an infrared video-based eye-tracking device recording

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eye movements every 4 ms (250 Hz) with a gaze position accuracy of 0.4°. No head -resting device was applied since the SMI RED250 tracker is able to compensate for changes in head position. SMIs Experiment Center software was utilized for stimulus presentation and synchronization with recorded eye movements.

Stimulus mate rials. A total of 156 pictures were selected from the Besançon Affective Picture Set - Adult (BAPS-Adult; Szymanska et al., 2019a), 39 of each of the four categories (distress, comfort, complicity-joy, and neutral content). The pictures were divided into 39 trials, each of them forming a 2 x 2 matrix of images of the four categories. The neutral images show also people as the distress, comfort, and complicity-joy images but without

Journal11Pre-proof positive or negative implications (e.g., walking along a street, or in the subway). Each of the four categories appeared equally likely in each corner, which was implemented by a randomized assignment. All pictures of the BAPS-Adult have undergone a systematic categorization and evaluation procedure based on a large sample. Images of the four emotional categories have been rated by a sample of healthy individuals (N = 315; mean age = 21, SD = 3.4) (see Szymanska et al., 2019a, for details). The mean valence ratings for the selected distress, neutral, comfort, and complicity-joy pictures were 2.68 (SD = 0.57), 4.98

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(SD = 0.30), 6.12 (SD = 0.76), and 7.23 (SD = 0.40). The ratings of valence have been given on a 9-point scale ranging from 1 (“unhappy”) to 9 (“happy”) (Szymanska et al., 2019a).

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According to one-way ANOVA, there was a highly significant effect of picture type on

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valence rating, F (3, 152) = 517.08, P < .001, partial ƞ2 = .91. Tukey HSD post-hoc tests

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indicated that all contrasts between picture categories were significant at P < .001. Moreover, the mean arousal ratings of our pictures were analyzed. All pictures have been rated on a 9-

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point scale ranging from 1 (“calm”) to 9 (aroused”) (Szymanska et al., 2019a). The mean

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arousal ratings for the selected distress, neutral, comfort, and complicity-joy pictures were

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4.69 (SD = 0.70), 2.97 (SD = 0.34), 3.62 (SD = 0.44), and 4.16 (SD = 0.54). A highly significant effect of picture type on arousal rating was observed, F (3, 152) = 77.81, P < .001, partial ƞ2 = .61. According to Tukey post-hoc tests all contrasts between categories were significant at P < .001. Finally, we compared mean dominance ratings for the four picture types. The ratings of dominance have been given on a 9-point scale ranging from 1 (“dominated”) to 9 (“dominating”) (Szymanska et al., 2019a). The mean dominance ratings for our distress, neutral, comfort, and complicity-joy pictures were 4.29 (SD = 0.34), 5.30 (SD = 0.32), 5.11 (SD = 0.21), and 5.37 (SD = 0.24). A highly significant effect of picture type on dominance rating was observed, F (3, 152) = 117.01, P < .001, partial ƞ2 = .70. According to Tukey post-hoc tests all comparisons between categories except one were

Journal12Pre-proof significant (at P < .05), the exception being the contrast between neutral and complicity-joy pictures.

Procedure. Participants were tested individually in a sound-attenuated room shielded from sunlight with a female investigator present. During the eye-tracking experiment, participants were seated in an adjustable chair at a distance of approximately 90 cm in front of a computer screen. Ceiling lightings produced stable illuminance conditions at 970 lux measured using a

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Mavolux 5032B luxmeter (Gossen, Nuremberg, Germany). A nine-point grid was used for calibration, followed by a separate validation using the IViewX software. In case the visual

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deviation was above 0.5° on the X or Y axis, the calibration procedure was repeated. No one

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was excluded for poor calibration. Only five women showed difficulties with calibration.

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Three of them had to repeat the calibration procedure three times until criteria were met. The data of two participants were collected although the calibration criteria were just almost

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fulfilled on repetition (visual deviation 0.5-0.7° on X or Y axis). Participants were told that

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they would be shown photographs and they should view the images freely at their own

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discretion. They were instructed to minimize head and body movements during the experiment. The first slide included the instruction to fix the gaze on the fixation cross when visible and view the images freely. Each trial of the task began with a fixation cross (gray cross against a white background) in the center of the screen, shown until a fixation time of 1000 ms. Subsequently, the four pictures were simultaneously presented for 10 s.

General Procedure All subjects were tested individually. After obtaining written informed consent, demographic data were registered, and visual acuity was checked. Then, subjects completed

Journal13Pre-proof the eye-tracking experiment. After that, participants completed the WEFG, PANAS-S, MWTB, BDI, and PANAS-T in a fixed order.

Statistical Analysis BeGaze 3.0 software was used to define four areas of interest (AOI) in each trial; corresponding to each picture type (distress, comfort, complicity-joy, and neutral). Blinks were removed by a blink detection algorithm. Dwell time was defined as the sum of durations

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from all fixations and saccades that hit the AOI in milliseconds. Dwell times were computed for each AOI and each trial and then averaged for each participant. Entry time was defined as

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the time (in milliseconds) lapsing between stimulus onset and the first fixation on the AOI.

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Entry times were calculated for each AOI and each trial and then averaged for each

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participant. To test for differences in entry and dwell times as a function of picture type (distress, comfort, complicity-joy and neutral), separate repeated-measures analyses of

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variance were performed. When appropriate, Greenhouse-Geisser correction (Greenhouse

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and Geisser, 1959) was applied to adjust the degrees of freedom of F-ratios. To assess the

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effect of Attention to feelings, Clarity of feelings, positive and negative affects, depression and intelligence these variables were entered as covariates into the models. In addition, product moment correlation analyses were performed to examine the association of Attention to feelings with entry and dwell time concerning emotional pictures and to explore the relationships of Attention to feelings and Clarity of feelings to affective measures (PANAS, BDI-II), intelligence (MWT-B), and entry and dwell times in the free viewing task. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 24.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).

Results

Journal14Pre-proof Descriptive Statistics and Reliabilities Descriptive statistics and internal consistencies for the questionnaires and tests are shown in Table 1. Cronbach’s α coefficients indicate good or satisfactory internal consistencies for all scales.

Relations between Psychometric Measures Attention to feelings was not significantly related to Clarity of feelings, positive and

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negative affect, depression and intelligence (see Table 1). In contrast, Clarity of feelings showed a positive correlation with positive trait affect and negative correlations with negative

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state and trait affect as well was depression. Positive state affect was correlated with positive

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trait affect. In addition, positive trait affect was negatively correlated with depression. Finally,

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as could be expected, the measures of depression, negative state and trait affect were all

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Analysis of Gaze Behavior

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positively correlated with each other (see Table 1).

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Entry times were examined by analysis of covariance with the repeated measures factor picture type (distress, comfort, complicity-joy, and neutral picture) (see Table 2 for entry times). Information on the distribution of entry times can be found in the supplementary material (see supplement A). A significant effect of picture type on entry time was observed, F (1.98, 178.46) = 120.39, P < .001, partial ƞ2 = .57. According to paired samples t-tests entry times were different in all comparisons (Ps < 0.05). That means that participants looked on average most rapidly at distress pictures, followed by comfort pictures and then complicityjoy pictures. Subjects took longest to direct their gaze to neutral pictures. When entering positive state and trait affect (PANAS-S P and PANAS-T P), negative state and trait affect (PANAS-S N and PANAS-T N), depression (BDI-II), intelligence (MWT-B), Clarity of

Journal15Pre-proof feelings and Attention to feelings as covariates into the model, a significant effect was only found for Attention to feelings on entry time, F (1, 82) = 4.02, P < .05, partial ƞ2 = .047. Dwell times were also examined by analysis of covariance (see Table 2 for dwell times). Information on the distribution of dwell times can be found in the supplementary material (see supplement B). There was a significant effect of picture type, F (2.21, 199.19) = 7.25, P < .001, partial ƞ2 = .075. According to paired samples t-tests, dwell time on comfort pictures was different from dwell time on the other picture types (ps < 0.005). No other

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significant differences between picture categories concerning dwell time were observed. That is, participants looked at least at comfort pictures, and viewed significantly longer at images

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of complicity-joy, distress and neutral content. When entering positive state and trait affect

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(PANAS-S P and PANAS-T P), negative state and trait affect (PANAS-S N and PANAS-T

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N), depression (BDI-II), intelligence (MWT-B), Clarity of feelings and Attention to feelings

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into the model, no significant effect of covariates on dwell time was obtained.

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Relations between psychometric measures and gaze behavior

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Correlation analyses showed that the scale Attention to feelings was negatively associated with entry times to emotional pictures (distress: r = -.24, 95% CI -.44, -.03; comfort: r = -.22, 95% CI -.43, -.02; and complicity-joy: r = -.25, 95% CI -.45, -.04). Thus, high dispositional attention to feelings went along with short entry times to emotional images. None of the other psychometric measures was related to entry times (see Table 3). Moreover, the results of correlation analyses revealed that Attention to feelings was positively associated with dwell time on comfort pictures (r = .23, 95% CI .02, .43) and negatively correlated with dwell time on neutral pictures r = -.21, 95% CI -.42, .00). Attention to feelings was not correlated with dwell time on distress and complicity-joy images (see Table 4). No other significant correlations between psychometric measures and dwell times were revealed.

Journal16Pre-proof

Discussion The goal of our study was to investigate whether dispositional attention to feelings influences early and late attentional processes in the visual perception of emotional information. To this aim, we measured spontaneous gaze behavior during a free viewing task in which emotional and neutral pictures were presented. To our knowledge, this is the first eye tracking study on this specific issue. Dispositional attention to feelings relates to the

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frequency with which an individual attends to his or her emotions in everyday life (Boden and Thompson, 2015). Besides emotional clarity which refers to the ability to identify and

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verbalize emotions, attention to feelings forms a core dimension underlying the broad

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constructs of emotional intelligence, alexithymia, and emotional awareness (Gohm and Clore,

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2000; Palmieri et al., 2009). In our study, we administered the WEFG scale (Lischetzke et al., 2001) that assesses these two dimensions of emotional awareness using narrow definitions.

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As indices of early and late attention allocation we used the eye-tracking parameters

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entry time and dwell time. Entry time is an index of initial attention orientation, whereas

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dwell time reflects an index of sustained attention or attentional preference. According to our data, entry time was lowest for distress pictures, longer for comfort, again longer for complicity-joy, and longest for pictures of emotionally neutral content. Thus, in our study we found evidence that viewers’ initial fixations occurred earlier to emotional than to neutral images. Previous research has shown repeatedly that attention is captured faster by emotional than by neutral content of the pictures (Calvo and Lang, 2005; Nummenmaa et al., 2009). It appears that emotional valence of complex pictures is automatically analyzed even from outside the focus of overt attention and that this information is used to guide the gaze in a reflexive way (Simola et al., 2013). Consistent with our hypotheses, attention to feelings was found to be negatively related to entry times for emotional pictures. That means, individuals

Journal17Pre-proof devoting habitually more attention to their feelings moved their gaze more quickly to the pictures of distress, comfort or complicity-joy than individuals devoting in general less attention to their feelings. Thus, regardless of the affective valence of the images it appears that dispositional attention to feelings is linked to an enhanced initial orientation of attention towards emotional scenes. Possibly, dispositional attention to feelings goes along with a more efficient detection of emotional information in the parafoveal or peripheral visual fields and/ or with a faster automatic engagement of the oculomotor system towards emotional content.

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In our sample, neither clarity of feelings nor state and trait affect were related to the initial orientation of gaze toward emotional images.

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In the present study, attention to feelings was found to correlate positively with dwell

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time on comfort images but was not associated with dwell time on distress and complicity-joy

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pictures. In addition, attention to feelings was negatively correlated with dwell time on neutral pictures. Our data suggest that picture type had a significant effect on dwell time.

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Dwell time for comfort pictures was lower compared to the other picture types. Distress,

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complicity-joy and neutral images were equally attended to. Thus, our subjects looked at least

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at comfort images, and significantly longer at pictures of distress, complicity-joy, and neutral content. These findings contrast with those of previous studies indicating sustained attention to pictures of unpleasant and pleasant valence, when emotional pictures are competing for attentional resources with simultaneously presented neutral pictures (Nummenmaa et al., 2006). Typically, affective valence irrespective of the arousal level is the main factor driving the maintenance of visual orientation (Astudillo et al., 2018). Compared to other studies, the neutral pictures administered in our investigation attracted participants’ attention to a greater degree when presented simultaneously with emotional pictures. It seems possible that image composition or structure of neutral images favored attention-catching effects. However, it is interesting to note in this context that individual differences in dispositional attention to

Journal18Pre-proof feelings predict attention allocation to an emotional picture category (i.e. comfort) that in our experiment received overall rather little attention, and less attention to neutral images that in our experiment received in general a relatively large amount of attention. Thus, the present findings confirm, at least in part, the hypothesis that attention to feelings leads to longer viewing of emotional images. It appears that individuals who devote habitually more attention to their emotional experiences look longer at positive emotional pictures. Dispositional attention to feelings seems to be associated with a visual attentional preference

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for emotional over neutral contents. Our results are basically compatible with those reported by Wiebe et al. (2017): in a free viewing task low externally oriented thinking (indicating

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high attention to and appreciation of feelings) has been observed to be associated with

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sustained attention to dysphoric information. Moreover, the present data are in line with

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results from Coffey et al. (2003) which indicate that habitual attention to one’s emotions is correlated with more attention allocation to emotion words in a Stroop task.

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In contrast to attention to feelings, dispositional clarity of feelings was in our sample

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not associated with early or late attentional processes in the visual perception of emotional

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information. Similarly, Coffey et al. (2003) found no relationship between emotional clarity and attention to emotional lexical information. There is also concordant evidence from an eye-tracking study (Wiebe et al., 2017) that difficulties in identifying and describing emotions are not related to attention allocation to emotional pictures. Against the background of these findings, it can be argued that dispositional attention to and clarity of one’s feelings which represent core dimensions of emotional intelligence, alexithymia, and emotional awareness seem to depend on different cognitive functions of emotion processing: processes of attention allocation and processes of recognition and verbalization. The question arises whether dispositional attention to one’s feelings and attention to emotional cues in the environment which respectively refer to internally-directed and

Journal19Pre-proof externally-directed attentional processes may share similar neural substrates or pathways. Internally-oriented attention occurs in the absence of external stimuli (e.g., in interoception or awareness of internal states), while externally-oriented attention depends on the presence of external stimuli (e.g., allocating attention to visual stimuli). However, emotion processing may often involve the co-occurrence of externally and internally oriented cognition, with attention being directed externally to the emotion-eliciting stimulus itself, and also internally to feelings elicited by those stimuli (Dixon et al., 2014). The inferior parietal cortex could

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represent a structure that is involved in externally as well as internally oriented attentional processes. Inferior parietal regions are known to mediate selective attention to external

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stimuli in the environment (Singh-Curry and Husain, 2009) but appear also relevant for

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directing attention to somatic states (Tracy et al., 2007). Future research combining functional

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neuroimaging with eye-tracking methodology could advance our understanding in the neural structures involved in attention allocation to external emotional information and the

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moderating effect of individual differences in internal attention to feelings.

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Relationships have been described between interoceptive awareness and attentional

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processing of visual stimuli (Matthias et al., 2009). The authors proposed that the ability of interoceptive awareness could enhance processing of external stimuli mediated by a higher precision in perceiving “marker” signals. Somatic markers are feelings in the body associated with emotions that are assumed to guide or bias cognitive and perceptual processes (Damasio, 2000). According to the present results, clarity of feelings but not attention to feelings was associated with heightened positive affect and decreased negative affect and depression. Our findings are in line with previous reports indicating relations of emotional clarity with subjective well-being (Lischetzke et al., 2012), low negative affect (Gohm and Clore, 2002), and few depressive symptoms (Kennedy et al., 2010). As mentioned above, devoting

Journal20Pre-proof habitually attention to one’s feelings seems to be neither beneficial nor detrimental to subjective well-being, its impact appears to depend on individual emotion regulation abilities (Lischetzke and Eid, 2003). Our finding concerning a link between dispositional attention to feelings and visual attention to emotion might have important implications for further clinical research on attentional biases. Future studies examining visual attention orientation in patients with emotional disorders should consider assessing individual differences in habitual attention to

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feelings. In this way, an important variable which was found to be largely independent of negative affectivity and depressive symptoms in our study, but also in previous research

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(Gohm and Clore, 2002; Salovey et al., 2002), could be controlled when investigating the

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impact of mental illness on processes of early vigilance and late processes of attention

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maintenance. The measurement of individual differences in attention to feelings could help to advance our knowledge about alterations of attention allocation caused by depression and

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anxiety disorders. It appears possible that patients’ habitual tendency to attend to their

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feelings could facilitate early and prolong late processes of attention orientation to emotional

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information independently of their specific illness. The interplay of these factors should be the subject of future clinical investigation on biased emotion perception. The findings of the present study confirm also that the Besançon Affective Picture Set is well-suited for examining visual attention allocation to emotional stimuli. In particular, it was observed that, as can be expected, the emotional pictures attracted attention faster than the pictures with neutral contents. Recently, the picture set has been successfully administered in clinical developmental research revealing different attachment-related strategies of emotion regulation in secure and insecure adolescents (Szymanska et al., 2019b). Some limitations of the present study should be noted. Generalization of our findings is limited by the fact that only women were included as study participants. It is known that

Journal21Pre-proof women attend more to their emotions compared to men, both voluntarily and involuntarily (Mankus et al., 2016). These differences might be due to how they were socialized to experience emotion, including the effect of gender stereotypes (Brody and Hall, 2008). Moreover, there is evidence from meta-analyses indicating that women have better abilities to recognize others’ emotions than men (Thompson and Voyer, 2014). Finally, in men emotional intelligence was not found to be related to correct perception of emotion cues (Fischer et al., 2018). Against this background, it appears worthwhile to determine for men the relation

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between attention to feelings and visual attention to emotion in future studies. Study generalizability is also restricted due to participants’ limited age range and high education of

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our sample. It has long been recognized that there exist age differences in attention for

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emotion cues. Older adults avoid negative information compared to young adults (Mather and

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Carstensen, 2003). Older individuals show a processing bias toward positive versus negative information, whereas younger individuals manifest the opposite pattern (Reed et al., 2014).

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Furthermore, with increasing age, individuals attend less to their feelings at an unintentional

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level (Mankus et al., 2016). Therefore, future research is necessary to clarify the association

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of dispositional attention to feelings with visual attention to emotion in older people. Moreover, it is a limitation of our study that no information on participants’ perceived arousal and valence of the image material was obtained. Our results do not provide insight into causal relationships among the examined variables. Longitudinal studies are necessary to investigate the causal directions and mechanisms of interplay between dispositional attention to one’s feelings and visual attention to emotional information. It is conceivable that the automatic orientation of attention to emotional cues in the environment could represent an important factor increasing saliency of emotional information and favoring the development of emotional reactions. In this way, emotional experiences might become more easily object of subjective attention and reflection in an individual’s everyday life. In our view, future

Journal22Pre-proof research in the field of emotional competencies and alexithymia will benefit from narrowly defined constructs. In conclusion, the present results provide support for the idea that individual differences in dispositional attention to feelings are related to early and, to some extent, also late processes of visual attention to emotional information. According to Cohen's conventions, the observed correlation coefficients indicate small to medium effect sizes. Our entry time data confirm that emotional content of complex pictorial scenes is automatically

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analyzed from outside the focus of overt attention and that this information is used to guide the eyes reflexively. It appears that devoting habitually attention to one’s feelings is linked to

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an enhanced initial orientation of attention towards emotional scenes, irrespective of affective

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valence. There is also some evidence that dispositional attention to feelings might be

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associated with a visual attentional preference for emotional over neutral contents. In contrast, consistent with previous findings, emotional clarity seems not to be related to

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Funding:

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processes of attention allocation to emotional stimuli.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Disclosure of author contributions: Conceptualization: AB, CMB, MS, AK, LVC, TS. Data collection: AB, CMB. Data analysis: AB, CMB, TS. Interpretation of data: AB, CMB, MS, AK, LVC, TS. Manuscript preparation: AB, TS. All authors have approved the final article.

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Journal32Pre-proof Table 1 Descriptive statistics, internal consistencies and correlations between psychometric measures

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ___________________________________________________________________________ 1. AF --2. CF .12 --3. PANAS-S P .12 .10 --4. PANAS-T P .09 .26* .60** --5. PANAS-S N .08 -.30** -.08 -.17 --6. PANAS-T N -.05 -.42** -.13 -.05 .68** --7. BDI-II .03 -.33** -.06 -.29** .32** .37** --8. MWT-B IQ .01 .18 .01 .04 -.02 -.04 -.07 --M 17.96 18.60 3.20 3.43 1.32 1.55 7.04 113.12 SD 3.42 3.38 0.61 0.59 0.32 0.43 5.37 11.99 Cronbach’s α .84 .86 .86 .85 .77 .82 .83 --___________________________________________________________________________ Note: N = 91 for all variables. * P < .05; ** P < .01 (two-tailed). AF: Attention to feelings;

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CF: Clarity of feelings; PANAS-S P/ PANAS-T P: Positive Affect Scale of the Positive and

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Negative Affect Schedule, state/trait version; PANAS-S N/ PANAS-T N: Negative Affect Scale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, state/trait version; BDI-II: Beck

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quotient.

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Depression Inventory; MWT-B IQ: Multiple-choice vocabulary test version B intelligence

Journal33Pre-proof Table 2 Mean entry times and dwell times as a function of picture type (in milliseconds) ___________________________________________________________________________ Entry time M

Dwell time SD

M

SD

___________________________________________________________________________

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Distress 1752 581 2322 508 Comfort 2098 627 2000 290 Complicity-joy 2173 694 2182 357 Neutral 2749 857 2225 490 ___________________________________________________________________________

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Note: N = 91 for all variables.

Journal34Pre-proof Table 3 Correlations of psychometric measures with entry times in the free viewing task Comfort

Complicity- Neutral joy ___________________________________________________________________________ 1. AF -.24* -.22* -.25* -.13 2. CF -.02 .01 .03 .04 3. PANAS-S P .03 -.09 -.11 -.15 4. PANAS-T P -.01 -.04 -.04 .06 5. PANAS-S N -.05 -.11 -.01 -.07 6. PANAS-T N -.06 -.06 -.04 -.03 7. BDI-II -.14 -.12 -.09 -.13 8. MWT-B IQ .10 .08 .10 .07 ___________________________________________________________________________

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Distress

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Note: N = 91 for all variables. * P < .05 (two-tailed). AF: Attention to feelings; CF: Clarity of feelings; PANAS-S P/ PANAS-T P: Positive Affect Scale of the Positive and Negative Affect

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Schedule, state/trait version; PANAS-S N/ PANAS-T N: Negative Affect Scale of the Positive

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and Negative Affect Schedule, state/trait version; BDI-II: Beck Depression Inventory; MWT-

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B IQ: Multiple-choice vocabulary test version B intelligence quotient.

Journal35Pre-proof Table 4 Correlations of psychometric measures with dwell times in the free viewing task Comfort

Complicity- Neutral joy ___________________________________________________________________________ 1. AF .03 .23* .03 -.21* 2. CF -.16 .13 .18 .00 3. PANAS-S P -.09 -.08 .12 .07 4. PANAS-T P -.06 .09 .16 -.04 5. PANAS-S N .11 .15 -.13 -.09 6. PANAS-T N -.01 .08 -.03 .05 7. BDI-II .12 .00 -.16 .04 8. MWT-B IQ -.05 .02 .00 -.02 ___________________________________________________________________________

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Distress

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Note: N = 91 for all variables. * P < .05 (two-tailed). AF: Attention to feelings; CF: Clarity of feelings; PANAS-S P/ PANAS-T P: Positive Affect Scale of the Positive and Negative Affect

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Schedule, state/trait version; PANAS-S N/ PANAS-T N: Negative Affect Scale of the Positive

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and Negative Affect Schedule, state/trait version; BDI-II: Beck Depression Inventory; MWT-

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B IQ: Multiple-choice vocabulary test version B intelligence quotient.

Journal36Pre-proof Highlights Habitual attention to one’s feelings and clarity of feelings were assessed

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Early and late gaze behavior on emotional and neutral images was examined

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State and trait affect, depression and intelligence of participants were controlled

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Attention to feelings was associated with faster entry times for emotional images

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Attention to feelings was correlated with longer dwell time on positive images

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Journal37Pre-proof Author statement (Contributor Roles Taxonomy)

Conceptualization: AB, CMB, MS, AK, LVC, TS; Data collection: AB, CMB; Data analysis: AB, CMB, TS;

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Data interpretation: AB, CMB, MS, AK, LVC, TS; Manuscript preparation: AB, TS.

Journal38Pre-proof Declaration of Interest statement

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The authors of the present manuscript declare that they have no competing financial or non -financial interests.

Journal39Pre-proof Ethical statement

We agree with and follow the standards of ethical behavior for authors concerning the act of publishing as outlined on the website https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/publishing-ethics. Our research involves the use of human subjects. We declare that our study has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki). Our manuscript is in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

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We included a statement in the manuscript that informed written consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects were observed.