2014
DOI: 10.1037/a0034834
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A review of current evidence for the causal impact of attentional bias on fear and anxiety.

Abstract: Prominent cognitive theories postulate that an attentional bias toward threatening information contributes to the etiology, maintenance, or exacerbation of fear and anxiety. In this review, we investigate to what extent these causal claims are supported by sound empirical evidence. Although differences in attentional bias are associated with differences in fear and anxiety, this association does not emerge consistently. Moreover, there is only limited evidence that individual differences in attentional bias ar… Show more

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Cited by 421 publications
(366 citation statements)
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References 340 publications
(433 reference statements)
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“…For instance, in order to train people not to attend certain stimuli (e.g., train a heavy drinker not to attend alcohol related cues), the dot probe task can be arranged in such a way that the dot appears most often at the location opposite to the location of those stimuli (i.e., mostly incongruent trials). These kinds of attentional bias modification training have been studied extensively in clinical and health psychology (see Koster &Bernstein, 2015, andMatthews, 2012, for reviews). Research using these procedures qualifies as CIEC research in that it is inspired by cognitive models about the role of attention in behavior and describes interventions in terms of surface features (i.e., tasks involving dot probes) and categorizes them in terms of mental processes (i.e., attention modification) rather than general functional principles (e.g., reinforcement).…”
Section: Cognitively-inspired Effect-centric Research In Applied Psycmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…For instance, in order to train people not to attend certain stimuli (e.g., train a heavy drinker not to attend alcohol related cues), the dot probe task can be arranged in such a way that the dot appears most often at the location opposite to the location of those stimuli (i.e., mostly incongruent trials). These kinds of attentional bias modification training have been studied extensively in clinical and health psychology (see Koster &Bernstein, 2015, andMatthews, 2012, for reviews). Research using these procedures qualifies as CIEC research in that it is inspired by cognitive models about the role of attention in behavior and describes interventions in terms of surface features (i.e., tasks involving dot probes) and categorizes them in terms of mental processes (i.e., attention modification) rather than general functional principles (e.g., reinforcement).…”
Section: Cognitively-inspired Effect-centric Research In Applied Psycmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Emotional biases in attention are related to psychological well-being: Healthy individuals pay more attention to positive material, whereas anxious and depressed individuals predominantly attend to threatening or sad material (Peckham, McHugh, & Otto, 2010;Van Bockstaele et al, 2014). These attention biases operate at several stages in the pathogenesis of affective disorders (e.g., at subclinical or remission stages), affect an individual's response to emotionally distressing situations, and predict the course of affective symptoms over time (Cisler, Bacon, & Williams, 2009;De Raedt & Koster, 2010).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Results of MacLeod et al (2002), for example, showed the expected training effects, i.e., faster responses when the probe replaced the valenced word it had consistently replaced during the training. However, the critical finding again concerns the effect on emotional reactivity following a stressor: Participants who were trained to attend threat reported more distress than participants who were trained to avoid threat (for reviews of additional CBM studies on interpretation and attention, see e.g., Beard 2011;Beard et al 2012;Hallion and Ruscio 2011;Hertel and Mathews 2011;MacLeod and Mathews 2012;Van Bockstaele et al 2013).…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%