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Neuroticism, recall bias and attention bias for valenced probes: a twin study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

F. V. Rijsdijk ,
H. Riese ,
M. Tops ,
H. Snieder ,
W. H. Brouwer ,
H. G. O. M. Smid  and
J. Ormel
F. V. Rijsdijk*
Affiliation:
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK
H. Riese
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Department of Epidemiology (Unit of Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics), University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
M. Tops
Affiliation:
Centre for Child and Family Studies, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands
H. Snieder
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology (Unit of Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics), University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
W. H. Brouwer
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
H. G. O. M. Smid
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
J. Ormel
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
*
*Address for correspondence: F. V. Rijsdijk, Ph.D., SGDP Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Box number PO80, London SE5 8AF, UK. (Email: f.rijsdijk@iop.kcl.ac.uk)
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Abstract

Background

Prior research on the nature of the vulnerability of neuroticism to psychopathology suggests biases in information processing towards emotional rather than neutral information. It is unclear to what extent this relationship can be explained by genetic or environmental factors.

Method

The genetic relationship between a neuroticism composite score and free recall of pleasant and unpleasant words and the reaction time on negative probes (dot-probe task) was investigated in 125 female twin pairs. Interaction effects were modelled to test whether the correlation between neuroticism and cognitive measures depended on the level of the neuroticism score.

Results

The only significant correlation was between neuroticism and the proportion of recalled unpleasant words (heritability is 30%), and was only detectable at the higher end of the neuroticism distribution. This interaction effect seems to be due to environmental effects that make people in the same family more similar (e.g. parental discipline style), rather than genetic factors. An interesting sub-finding was that faster reaction times for left versus right visual field probes in the dot-probe task suggest that cognitive processing in the right hemisphere is more sensitive to subliminal (biologically relevant) cues and that this characteristic is under substantial genetic control (49%). Individual differences in reaction times on right visual field probes were due to environmental effects only.

Conclusions

There is no evidence that the predisposition of individuals to focus on negative (emotional) stimuli is a possible underlying genetic mechanism of neuroticism.

Keywords

Dot-probe taskheritabilitymoderator effectsneuroticismrecall bias
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 45 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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