Attentional Scope, Rumination, and Processing of Emotional Information: An Eye-Tracking Study

Rumination is considered as a relatively maladaptive form of repetitive thinking that has a marked impact on mood. Individual differences in attentional scope have been proposed as an important mechanism rendering some individuals more prone to ruminate than others. The attentional scope model of rumination posits that rumination is related to a narrowed attentional scope, which may affect processing of neutral and emotional information. This study (n = 56) aimed to extend research on the relation between rumination and attentional scope while processing neutral, positive, and negative information. To assess attentional scope, a moving window task was applied which involved reading both neutral and emotional sentences. The result of reading rate indicated that individuals with higher levels of trait rumination showed a narrower attentional scope in general. In addition, the total reading time of individuals with higher levels of trait rumination was shorter when processing neutral and positive sentences through a constrained window frame, but this was not the case when processing negative sentences. These findings suggest that even though high trait ruminators use an overall constrained manner of processing, they may still process negative information differently compared to other types of information.