Does attention redirection contribute to the effectiveness of attention bias modification on social anxiety?

Cognitive bias modification of interpretation in children with social anxiety disorder

“…On the basis of a meta-analysis of CBM (of attention and interpretation) interventions for mental health problems in children, Cristea, Mogoase, David and Cuijpers (2015) concluded that while CBM appeared to bring about significant changes in interpretation biases, these shifts did not translate to changes in child symptoms of anxiety, depression or general mental health (consistent with recent studies of Attention Bias Modification in the context of social anxiety; Carleton et al, 2015; Heeren, Mogoaşe, McNally, Schmitz & Philippot, 2015; Yao, Yu, Qian & Li, 2015). However, interpretation measures were collapsed to include both controlled in-lab experiments and real-life, ecologically valid measures, leaving the extent to which interpretation bias changed somewhat unclear.…”

Insula activation is modulated by attention shifting in social anxiety disorder

“…We were not able to detect any impact of attention training on SAD symptoms, relative to a control condition, though there was a trend that training toward threat resulted in insula deactivation during attention modulation. The lack of impact on symptoms (related to control) adds to a growing body of work reporting no differences between active attention training and control conditions (Carleton et al, 2015, 2017; Clerkin et al, 2016; Heeren et al, 2016; Heeren, Mogoaşe, et al, 2015; Pergamin-Hight et al, 2016; Yao et al, 2015). While our findings, along with prior studies, find reductions in symptoms following attention training, the lack of training-specific effects questions the utility of attention training in its current form.…”

“…Despite considerable early promise, there have now been a number of studies showing no specific benefits from attention training, relative to control conditions (Carleton et al, 2015; Carleton, Teale Sapach, Oriet, & LeBouthillier, 2017; Clerkin, Magee, Wells, Beard, & Barnett, 2016; Fitzgerald, Rawdon, & Dooley, 2016; Heeren, Coussement, & McNally, 2016; Heeren, Mogoaşe, et al, 2015; Pergamin-Hight, Pine, Fox, & Bar-Haim, 2016; Yao, Yu, Qian, & Li, 2015). Some of these studies do report improvements in general cognitive processes, like attention and working memory (Heeren et al, 2016; Heeren, Mogoaşe, et al, 2015), and most reported reductions in observed and/or self-reported anxiety symptoms over time (Carleton et al, 2015, 2017; Clerkin et al, 2016; Heeren et al, 2016; Heeren, Mogoaşe, et al, 2015; Pergamin-Hight et al, 2016; Yao et al, 2015). However, when reported, symptom improvements were not significantly different between active training and control paradigms, suggesting that practice effects may have been driving these changes.…”

Attention Bias Modification (ABM): Review of Effects of Multisession ABM Training on Anxiety and Threat-Related Attention in High-Anxious Individuals

“…Several ABM-threat-avoidance training studies include additional comparison conditions, such as no-treatment waitlist control (Enock, Hofmann, & McNally, 2014), and attention training using nonthreat cues, such as geometric-attention training, which involves attention training with a contingency between cue and probe locations but without threat-cue exposure (e.g., probes are more likely to replace rectangles than ellipses; Yao, Yu, Qian, & Li, 2015). Another comparison condition is inverse-ABM training-toward-threat (Boettcher et al, 2013; Heeren, Reese, McNally, & Philippot, 2012; Heeren, Mogoase, McNally et al, 2015; McNally et al, 2013), which is designed to have the opposite effect of ABM-threat-avoidance training and increase AB toward threat (i.e., using the visual-probe task with probes being more likely to replace threat than nonthreat cues).…”

“…Of studies using standard visual-probe-task scores to assess AB, most did not find AB in orienting toward threat relative to nonthreat stimuli in anxious individuals before training (e.g., Amir, Beard, Burns et al, 2009; Badura-Brack et al, 2015, Study 2; Boettcher et al, 2013, 2014; Britton et al, 2015; Carleton et al, 2015; Enock et al, 2014; Fitzgerald et al, 2016; Kuckertz, Amir et al, 2014; Li et al, 2008; Maoz et al, 2013; McNally et al, 2013; Pergamin-Hight et al, 2016; Rapee et al, 2013; Schoorl et al, 2013; Waters et al, 2013, 2015; Yao et al, 2015). Eldar et al (2012) excluded almost half of anxious children originally recruited because they lacked AB for threat, so the sample who underwent attention training all had pretraining AB because of this selection criterion.…”