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Extending the positive bias in Williams syndrome: The influence of biographical information on attention allocation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2019

Kelsie A. Boulton  and
Melanie A. Porter
Kelsie A. Boulton*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Centre for Atypical Neurodevelopment, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Melanie A. Porter
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Centre for Atypical Neurodevelopment, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
*
Author for correspondence: Kelsie A. Boulton, Department of Psychology, C3A, Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia, 2109; E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

There is evidence that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) show an attention bias toward positive social-perceptual (happy) faces. Research has not yet considered whether this attention bias extends beyond social-perceptual stimuli to perceptually neutral stimuli that are paired with positive (trustworthy) biographical information. Fourteen participants with WS (mean age = 21 years, 1 month) learned to associate perceptually neutral faces with trustworthy (positive), neutral, or untrustworthy (negative) biographical information, before completing a dot-probe task where the same biographical faces were presented. The performance of the WS group was compared to two typically developing control groups, individually matched to the WS individuals on chronological age and mental age, respectively. No between-group bias toward untrustworthy characters was observed. The WS group displayed a selective attention bias toward trustworthy characters compared to both control groups (who did not show such a bias). Results support previous findings that indicate WS individuals show a preference for positive social-perceptual stimuli (happy faces) at the neurological, physiological, and attentional levels. The current findings extend this work to include a “top-down” positive bias. The implications of a positive bias that extends beyond social-perceptual stimuli (or “bottom-up” processes) in this syndrome are discussed.

Keywords

attention biassocial phenotypeWilliams syndrome
Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 243 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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