Abstract

Attentional bias for motivationally relevant stimuli has been demonstrated with tasks such as the dot-probe and Stroop. These kinds of procedures have revealed that relevant stimuli (e.g. food, drugs, anxiety) do appear to draw greater attention. Whether or not an attentional bias leads to greater cognitive processing (“Cognitive Bias”) of those stimuli has yet to be comprehensively studied. Studies of cognitive bias have generally used procedures intended to assess explicit cognitive processing (directed, conscious and controlled). Explicit procedures may produce demand characteristics, and be relatively insensitive to underlying motivational state. Therefore, the current studies utilized implicit procedures that tap into unconscious, non-directed and automatic cognitive processes. An incidental learning task was used to assess cognitive bias related to common motivational interests in college students. Subjects rated 60 words on the scales of emotionality, imagery and frequency. Incidental learning was then assessed by a surprise recall task. In separate tests subjects exhibited superior recall for sexual, drug-related and “taboo-related” stimuli. . Results across all our studies argue that while recall was altered by cognitive bias, overall memory performance did not change. The relationship of cognitive bias to motivational state and to behavior requires more study, especially for non-clinical populations.