Predictive attentional bias modification induces stimulus-evoked attentional bias for threat

Abstract

Attentional Bias Modification (ABM) aims to modulate attentional biases, but questions remain about its efficacy and there may be new variants yet to explore. The current study tested effects of a novel version of ABM, predictive ABM (predABM), using visually neutral cues predicting the locations of future threatening and neutral stimuli that had a chance of appearing after a delay. Such effects could also help understand anticipatory attentional biases measured using cued Visual Probe Tasks. One hundred and two participants completed the experiment online. We tested whether training Towards Threat versus Away from Threat contingencies on the predABM would cause subsequent attentional biases towards versus away from threat versus neutral stimuli, respectively. Participants were randomly assigned and compared on attentional bias measured via a post-training Dot-Probe task. A significant difference was found between the attentional bias in the Towards Threat versus Away from Threat group. The training contingencies induced effects on bias in the expected direction, although the bias in each group separately did not reach significance. Stronger effects may require multiple training sessions. Nevertheless, the primary test confirmed the hypothesis, showing that the predABM is a potentially interesting variant of ABM. Theoretically, the results show that automatization may involve the process of selecting the outcome of a cognitive response, rather than a simple stimulus-response association. Training based on contingencies involving predicted stimuli affect subsequent attentional measures and could be of interest in future clinical studies.

Spatial anticipatory attentional bias for alcohol: A preliminary report on reliability and associations with risky drinking

“…Thus, performance on probes is never influenced by the direct presentation of an emotional stimulus, only by the location of visually neutral cues predicting stimulus categories. Further, it has been found that performing a training version of the cVPT induces an attentional bias to stimuli belonging to the trained predicted categories [24]. This supports the interpretation of effects on the cVPT being due to anticipatory processes.…”

Is Sham Training Still Training? An Alternative Control Group for Attentional Bias Modification

“…Accordingly, a few authors have suggested that sham training actively trains equal attention to substance-relevant and neutral stimuli and thereby may affect control over attention for substance-related stimuli (e.g., Schoenmakers et al, 2010 ; Badura-Brack et al, 2015 ; Khanna et al, 2016 ). Others have suggested that sham training serves to train participants to ignore emotional stimuli when confronted with them (Gladwin, 2017 ; Gladwin et al, 2019 ). In line with these ideas, the sham training protocol has sometimes been reconceptualized and renamed as “attentional control training,” and viewed as a more top-down goal-directed process (Gladwin, 2017 ).…”

Anticipation-specific reliability and trial-to-trial carryover of anticipatory attentional bias for threat

“…Predicted outcomes would be expected to bias the selection of responses towards those with better predicted outcomes, including covert cognitive responses such as attentional shifts. Evidence that this outcomefocused automatic process does indeed underlie the anticipatory bias was provided by a training study: training participants to direct attention towards versus away from a cued salient stimulus category, using a predictive form of Attentional Bias Modification, was found to result in a subsequent stimulus-evoked bias (Gladwin, Möbius, & Becker, 2019).…”