Comparing visual and auditory presentation for the modification of interpretation bias

Standage, Helen; Ashwin, Chris; Fox, Elaine

doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.07.006

Cited by 23 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…For example, Salemink, van den Hout, and Kindt (2007a) reported that having participants practise making positive inferences about social situations influenced later social interpretations but failed to reduce the anxiety elicited by the later experience of test failure. A similar absence of congruent emotional effects of social training on giving a speech was reported by Standage, Ashwin, and Fox (2009). In an unpublished series of experiments, we (Mackintosh, Mathews, Hoppitt, & Eckstein, 2010) also found that training with either positive social or test outcomes (e.g., you have to give a difficult presentation but it eventually goes well) actually tended to worsen the deleterious emotional consequences of later failure on difficult cognitive tasks.…”

Section: When Does Interpretation Training Generalise To Other Tasks supporting

confidence: 77%

Effects of modifying the interpretation of emotional ambiguity

Mathews

2012

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

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People vary in how they perceive emotionally ambiguous events: For example, anxious individuals are particularly likely to interpret emotional ambiguity in a threatening way. Experimental studies have shown that such processing styles are malleable, and when modified can lead to corresponding changes in emotional reactivity. The methods used to modify processing and to assess subsequent changes in emotional reactivity are described and theoretical accounts of the mechanism underlying such changes are discussed. Recent application of related methods to modifying clinical problems demonstrates their utility, but beyond such practical applications, the approach provides new ways of probing the nature of the relationship between cognition and emotion.Suppose you venture an opinion on current events to a group of acquaintances and notice that some of them are smiling. Most of us would take that as a sign of approval, or at least a degree of positive interest. In contrast, people who are prone to feeling anxious in social situations are quite likely to interpret the smiles of others as indicating derision, and feel embarrassed rather than pleased. As this example is intended to illustrate, the interpretation of emotional information sometimes seems to influence how we feel, although it is probably also true that how we feel can influence how we interpret events. In the present paper, after a brief and necessarily selective review of the evidence for such an association, experiments are described that support the hypothesis of a causal relationship between how ambiguous information is interpreted and emotional reactivity, and that suggest mechanisms that may underlie this relationship.The methods used to investigate this relationship open up new ways of studying cognitionÁemotion interactions, as well as new approaches for treating or preventing emotional problems.

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Section: When Does Interpretation Training Generalise To Other Tasks supporting

confidence: 77%

Effects of modifying the interpretation of emotional ambiguity

Mathews

2012

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

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“…This plasticity of interpretative style has been reported in individuals with varying anxiety levels (MacLeod, Koster, & Fox, 2009). These data also show that induced interpretative styles generate differences in anxious mood after training (Mathews & Mackintosh, 2000;Mathews, Ridgeway, Cook, & Yiend, 2007;Salemink, van den Hout, & Kindt, 2007;Standage, Ashwin, & Fox, 2009) and in response to symptom provocation (Hirsch, Hayes, & Mathews, 2009;Murphy, Hirsch, Mathews, Smith, & Clark, 2007;Wilson, MacLeod, Mathews, & Rutherford, 2006). Thus compared to negatively-trained participants, positively-trained participants show reductions in anxious responses to naturally-occurring stressors or psychological challenges.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Cognitive bias modification training in adolescents reduces anxiety to a psychological challenge

Lau

Belli

Chopra

2012

Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry

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Background: Anxiety disorders commonly occur in adolescence with disabling consequences. As adolescent anxiety predicts adult anxiety and mood disorders, there are growing efforts to identify suitable tools for prevention. Prior data show the effectiveness of Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations (CBM-I) training in generating positive interpretative styles of ambiguous information in adolescents. Here, we assess the effects of positive CBM-I training on anxious mood responses to a psychological challenge performed under time constraints and anticipated social evaluation. Methods: Fifty adolescents were randomly assigned to receive positive or negative computerised cognitive training. Training involved reading and listening to 60 ambiguous scenarios that were resolved via completion of a word fragment in a positive or negative direction. After training, all adolescents completed an interpretation bias test and performed a difficult mental arithmetic task while believing that they were being videotaped for teaching purposes. Before and after training, and before and after the psychological challenge, adolescents completed anxiety ratings using visual analogue scales. Results: Data from the interpretation bias test showed that training was successful at inducing positive and negative interpretations in each training group respectively. There were no effects of training group on changes in anxious mood before and after training. However anxious mood changes assayed before and after the psychological challenge revealed training effects: compared to negatively-trained adolescents, positively-trained adolescents showed attenuated anxiety levels post but not pre-stressor. Conclusion: These results confirmed previous data that computerised CBM-I training can generate positive and negative interpretative styles in adolescents. These data also showed that induced interpretations could impact on anxious responses precipitated by a psychological challenge. These data have implications for using CBM-I training as a preventative tool targeting emotional well-being across all adolescents.

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“…As adolescents were told that the task involved reading a number of scenarios, our volunteer sample may have self-selected on the basis of reading ability. To examine training effects in a broader range of adolescents with differing cognitive capacities, including younger participants, future studies could develop auditory training tasks, although caution over differences as a function of training modality needs to be considered [62]. Second, adolescents assigned to positive training reported significantly higher mean negative affect prior to bias induction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Plasticity of Adolescent Cognitions: Data from a Novel Cognitive Bias Modification Training Task

Lau

Molyneaux

Telman

et al. 2011

Child Psychiatry Hum Dev

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Many adult anxiety problems emerge in adolescence. Investigating how adolescent anxiety arises and abates is critical for understanding and preventing adult psychiatric problems. Drawing threat interpretations from ambiguous material is linked to adolescent anxiety but little research has clarified the causal nature of this relationship. Work in adults using Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations (CBM-I) training show that manipulating negative interpretational style alters negative affect. Conversely, 'boosting' positive interpretations improves affect. Here, we extend CBM-I investigations to adolescents. Thirty-nine adolescents (13-18 years), varying in trait anxiety and selfefficacy, were randomly allocated to receive positive or negative training. Training-congruent differences emerged for subsequent interpretation style. Induced negative biases predicted a decline in positive affect in low self-efficacious adolescents only. Tentatively, our data suggest that cognitive biases predict adolescent affective symptoms in vulnerable individuals. The acquisition of positive cognitions through training has implications for prevention.

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Comparing visual and auditory presentation for the modification of interpretation bias

Cited by 23 publications

References 31 publications

Effects of modifying the interpretation of emotional ambiguity

Effects of modifying the interpretation of emotional ambiguity

Cognitive bias modification training in adolescents reduces anxiety to a psychological challenge

The Plasticity of Adolescent Cognitions: Data from a Novel Cognitive Bias Modification Training Task

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