A Study Of Attentional Processing Bias In Internet Users Of Different Motives

Pathological Internet use(internet addiction or internet dependent behavior) increasingly arouses the attention of researchers, but no experimental study has been conducted to explore cognitive processing mode. Based on the similar behavior mode(such as impulse behavior) between substance dependent disorder and pathological behavior disorder(such as gambling addiction), the experiment paradigm aimed at substance dependent participants could be used to explore the cognition mechanism of behavior dependent(including pathological internet use) participants. The present study, based on the phenomenological study of internet users motivated by different desires made use of emotional stroop pattern and its altered version pattern broadly applied to attentional bias of clinical psychopath, substance dependent persons and behavior dependent persons to investigate attentional and preattentional bias mechanism of internet users of different motives, hoping to deepen the understanding to psychological mechanism of internet using behavior of different motives .Three experiments were carried out in this study. The first experiment in virtue of craving measurement based on cue-exposed in substance addiction studies examined the invoking Intensity of internet related cues to internet desiring in internet users of different motives. The second and third experiment respectively employed emotional stroop pattern and its altered version pattern to look into characteristics of attentional and preattentional bias to internet related cues in internet users of different motives.The main results are listed as follows:(1) Information acquisition cues of internet had an invoking effect on internet users activated by information acquisition desire, while negative emotional experience and affective-compensated cues achieved through internet had an invoking effect on internet users activated by social-affective desire.(2) Internet users activated by information acquisition motive showed significant attentional bias toward information acquisition cues of internet, while users by social-affective motive displayed significant attentional bias toward the affective-satisfied cues of internet and the negative emotional cues.