[1] Attentional biases may explain an individual's failure to consider alternative possibilities when occupied with an existing train of thought.
[2] For example, cigarette smokers have been shown to possess an attentional bias for smoking-related cues around them, due to their brain's altered reward sensitivity.
Similarly, due to attentional bias, atheists equally tunnel on data from the present/absent (A/B', A'/B) cells: "Has God ever given me something that I didn't ask for?"
This experiment too supports Smedslund's general conclusion that subjects tend to ignore part of the table depending on their specific attentional biases.
[9][10][4][11] In one experiment, faces with varying valences were presented (neutral, threatening, and happy) with a forced-choice reaction time at two exposure durations, 500 and 1250msec.
For individuals with high trait anxiety, there was strong evidence for an attentional bias favoring threatening facial expressions.
However, for subliminal threat stimuli, the anxious group showed a greater vigilance, which implies an anxiety-related bias on the subconscious level.
[15] Research from the past two decades has established that addictive behaviour is strongly correlated to the attentional bias for substance-related cues, in how the latter characterizes the former.
Results showed a strong correlation between a slower reaction time and the degree of negative language employed when discussing smoking.
[18] The experiment illustrates the influence of attentional bias on environmental smoking cues and how these could contribute to a smokers' inability to quit.
It is easier for individuals who experience this to relapse and begin their drug use again, because the urges given off by that initial stimuli can prove to be too strong to curb.
[24] This means that when experiencing attentional bias, treated addicts seemed to brush off the memories a little easier compared to those who had not received proper treatment.
In other words, certain steps need to be taken in treatment facilities across the country to ensure that drug addiction no longer rises, or continues to ruin people's lives.
Also, a therapy of this kind should be closely monitored and mandatory to ensure the smallest number of relapses occur after treatment.
[29] Conversely, other individuals have argued that humans are prone to attentional biases at certain points of information processing, which is now a more common topic of controversy.
[3] Individuals with clinically relevant symptoms, such as anxiety disorders[1] and chronic pain[8] are shown to initially focus on threatening information.