Do persons with negative affect have an attentional bias to bodily sensations?

The association between negative affectivity (NA) and health complaints is thought to reflect a stronger attentional focus on bodily sensations in hig h NA persons. Perceiving these sensations as rather threatening, high NA pe rsons may scan their internal environment for impending signs of pain and t rouble. Using an on-line registration of attentional deployment, we tested whether high NA persons were allocating more attentional resources to inter nal sensations and less to external stimuli compared to low NA persons. Hig h and low NA participants (N=68) performed a Stroop-like primary task durin g a number of trials in which: (1) only an internal; (2) only an external; or (3) both an internal and an external stimulus could occur. Internal stim uli consisted of 7.5% carbon dioxide administrations, causing slight increa ses in ventilation. An increase in time interval between successive tones s erved as the external stimulus. Participants were asked to press a button w hen they noticed one of both events. Results showed that high NA participan ts: (1) detected the effects of a first respiratory stimulus faster; (2) pe rformed poorer on the tone task when anticipating a respiratory challenge; (3) performed slower on the Stroop task during respiratory stimuli. These f indings may indicate that high NA participants show a stronger attentional bias to internal sensations.