title: Attention as a characteristic of nonclinical dissociation: an event-related potential study.
abstract: Individual differences in dissociative style (which is generally considered a risk factor for dissociative pathology) were studied in a nonclinical sample. It was hypothesized that high-dissociative participants would show enhanced attentional abilities toward both relevant and irrelevant stimulus features. In the experiment, threatening and affectively neutral words were classified on their affective valence and the presence of the letter A. To facilitate the full deployment of dissociative abilities, a feature (i.e., negative valence) was included that would automatically attract attention but not interfere with the processing of the central feature. Both the behavioral measures (i.e., reaction time) and the central neural measures (i.e., event-related potentials) showed that the ability to direct attention to the central feature was enhanced in the high dissociators. The high dissociators, moreover, showed evidence of directing attention to both affective valence and the letter A in the letter detection task. It is concluded that dissociative style does not correspond to a damaged or disturbed function but to an enhanced ability to direct and divide attention.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Psychonomics Department, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. mbderuiter@psy.uva.nl
authors.forename: Michiel B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: de Ruiter
authors.forename: R Hans
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Phaf
authors.forename: Dick J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Veltman
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kok
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van Dyck
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted