ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5860-6449
Current Organisations
Universiteit van Amsterdam
,
University of Amsterdam
,
University of Western Australia
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Publications
Implicit attitudes towards smoking predict long-term relapse in abstinent smokers
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-03-2015
DOI: 10.1007/S00213-015-3893-2
Abstract: It has previously been argued that implicit attitudes toward substance-related cues drive addictive behavior. Nevertheless, it remains an open question whether behavioral markers of implicit attitude activation can be used to predict long-term relapse. The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between implicit attitudes toward smoking-related cues and long-term relapse in abstaining smokers. Implicit attitudes toward smoking-related cues were assessed by means of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the evaluative priming task (EPT). Both measures were completed by a group of smokers who volunteered to quit smoking (patient group) and a group of nonsmokers (control group). Participants in the patient group completed these measures twice: once prior to smoking cessation and once after smoking cessation. Relapse was assessed by means of short telephone survey, 6 months after completion of the second test session. EPT scores obtained prior to smoking cessation were related to long-term relapse and correlated with self-reported nicotine dependence as well as daily cigarette consumption. In contrast, none of the behavioral outcome measures were found to correlate with the IAT scores. These findings corroborate the idea that implicit attitudes toward substance-related cues are critically involved in long-term relapse. A potential explanation for the ergent findings obtained with the IAT and EPT is provided.
The effects of attentional bias modification on emotion regulation
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.JBTEP.2018.08.010
Abstract: In two experiments, we investigated the effects of Attentional Bias Modification (ABM) on emotion regulation, i.e. the manner in which people influence emotional experiences. We hypothesized that decreases in attentional bias to threat would impair upregulation and improve downregulation of negative emotions, while increases in attentional bias to threat would improve upregulation and impair downregulation of negative emotions. Using the emotion-in-motion paradigm (Experiment 1, N = 60) and the visual search task (Experiment 2, N = 58), we trained participants to attend to either threatening or positive stimuli and we assessed emotion intensity while observing, upregulating, and downregulating emotions in response to grids of mixed emotional pictures. In Experiment 1, the attend positive group reported more positive emotions while merely watching grids of training pictures and the attend threat group showed impaired upregulation of negative affect. In Experiment 2, the attend threat group reported intensified negative emotions for all three instructions, while the attend positive group remained largely stable over time. We cannot unequivocally attribute these changes in emotion regulation to changes in attentional bias, as neither of the experiments yielded significant changes in attentional bias to threat. By showing that attentional bias modification procedures affect the manner in which people deal with emotions, we add empirical weight to the conceptual overlap between attentional bias modification and emotion regulation.
The relation between early behavioural inhibition and later social anxiety, independent of attentional biases to threat
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-08-2021
Pulling for pleasure? Erotic approach-bias associated with porn use, not problems
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2020
Limited generalisation of changes in attentional bias following attentional bias modification with the visual probe task
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 23-10-2015
DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2015.1092418
Abstract: Although attentional bias modification (ABM) can change anxiety, recent studies failed to replicate such effects, possibly because the visual probe ABM failed to induce changes in attentional bias (AB). We investigated whether visual probe ABM generalised to different measures of AB besides the visual probe task (VPT), and thus whether ABM genuinely changes attentional processing. We trained participants (N = 60) to either attend towards or away from angry facial expressions, and we examined training effects on the dot probe task, the exogenous cueing task, and the visual search task. We found a small change in AB in the VPT, but this effect did not transfer to the exogenous cueing task or the visual search task. Our study shows that ABM does not necessarily lead to generalised effects on AB. This finding can be explained by the poor psychometric properties of the AB measures.
Differential predictive power of self report and implicit measures on behavioural and physiological fear responses to spiders
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.IJPSYCHO.2010.10.003
Abstract: In this study, we investigated to what extent indirect measures predict behavioural and physiological fear responses towards spiders. Implicit attitudes towards spiders were assessed using an implicit association test and attentional bias towards spiders was assessed using a dot probe task and a disengagement task. Results showed that a self report measure of fear for spiders, but not the indirect measures predicted avoidance behaviour. The indirect measures but not the self report measure predicted changes in heart rate in response to the presentation of a spider. These results suggest that indirect measures may be useful in predicting and understanding fear responses that are not easily voluntarily controlled.
Dual processes in fear and anxiety: no effects of cognitive load on the predictive value of implicit measures
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 16-03-2021
Is the emotional modulation of the attentional blink driven by response bias?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 16-12-2010
DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2010.524192
Abstract: Several studies have shown that the attentional blink (AB Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992) is diminished for highly arousing T2 stimuli (e.g., Anderson, 2005). Whereas this effect is most often interpreted as evidence for a more efficient processing of arousing information, it could be due also to a bias to report more arousing stimuli than neutral stimuli. We introduce a paradigm that allows one to control for such a response bias. Using this paradigm, we obtained evidence that the diminished AB for taboo words cannot be explained by a response bias. This supports the idea that the emotional modulation of the AB is caused by attentional processes.
Implicit associations between pain and self-schema in patients with chronic pain
Publisher: Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Date: 12-2013
DOI: 10.1016/J.PAIN.2013.07.055
Abstract: Chronic pain often interferes with daily functioning, and may become a threat to an in idual's sense of self. Despite the development of a recent theoretical account focussing upon the relationship between the presence of chronic pain and a person's self, research investigating this idea is limited. In the present study we aimed to (1) compare the strength of association between self- and pain schema in patients with chronic pain and healthy control subjects and (2) research whether the strength of association between self- and pain-schema is related to particular pain-related outcomes and in idual differences of patients with chronic pain. Seventy-three patients with chronic pain (M(age) = 49.95 SD = 9.76) and 53 healthy volunteers (M(age) = 48.53 SD = 10.37) performed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess the strength of association between pain- and self-schema. Patients with chronic pain also filled out self-report measures of pain severity, pain suffering, disability, depression, anxiety, acceptance, and helplessness. Results indicated that the pain- and self-schema were more strongly associated in patients with chronic pain than in healthy control subjects. Second, results indicated that, in patients with chronic pain, a stronger association between self- and pain-schema, as measured with the IAT, is related to a heightened level of pain severity, pain suffering, anxiety, and helplessness. Current findings give first support for the use of an IAT to investigate the strength of association between self- and pain-schema in patients with chronic pain and suggest that pain therapies may incorporate techniques that intervene on the level of self-pain enmeshment.
Lying takes time: A meta-analysis on reaction time measures of deception.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1037/BUL0000087
Abstract: Lie detection techniques are frequently used, but most of them have been criticized for the lack of empirical support for their predictive validity and presumed underlying mechanisms. This situation has led to increased efforts to unravel the cognitive mechanisms underlying deception and to develop a comprehensive theory of deception. A cognitive approach to deception has reinvigorated interest in reaction time (RT) measures to differentiate lies from truths and to investigate whether lying is more cognitively demanding than truth telling. Here, we provide the results of a meta-analysis of 114 studies (n = 3307) using computerized RT paradigms to assess the cognitive cost of lying. Results revealed a large standardized RT difference, even after correction for publication bias (d = 1.049 95% CI [0.930 1.169]), with a large heterogeneity amongst effect sizes. Moderator analyses revealed that the RT deception effect was smaller, yet still large, in studies in which participants received instructions to avoid detection. The autobiographical Implicit Association Test produced smaller effects than the Concealed Information Test, the Sheffield Lie Test, and the Differentiation of Deception paradigm. An additional meta-analysis (17 studies, n = 348) showed that, like other deception measures, RT deception measures are susceptible to countermeasures. Whereas our meta-analysis corroborates current cognitive approaches to deception, the observed heterogeneity calls for further research on the boundary conditions of the cognitive cost of deception. RT-based measures of deception may have potential in applied settings, but countermeasures remain an important challenge. (PsycINFO Database Record
Implicit measures of “wanting” and “liking” in humans
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUBIOREV.2015.09.015
Abstract: Incentive Sensitization Theory (IST e.g., Robinson and Berridge, 1993. Brain Res. Rev., 18, 291 Robinson and Berridge, 2003 Trends Neurosci., 26, 507) suggests that a common dopamine system that deals with incentive salience attribution is affected by different types of drugs. Repeated drug use will sensitize this neural system, which means that drugs increasingly trigger the experience of incentive salience or "wanting". Importantly, Robinson and Berridge stress that there is a dissociation between drug "wanting" (the unconscious attribution of incentive salience) and drug "liking" (the unconscious hedonic experience when one consumes drugs). Whereas the former plays an essential role in the development and maintenance of drug addiction, the latter does not. Although this model was based mainly on research with non-human animals, more recently the dissociation between "wanting" and "liking" has been examined in humans as well. A widely used and promising means of studying these processes are behavioral implicit measures such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT), different types of Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) tasks, and Affective Simon Tasks (AST). IST makes the clear prediction that (1) there should be a positive correlation between indices of "wanting" (e.g., drug consumption) and implicit "wanting" scores. Similarly, there should be a positive correlation between indices of "liking" (e.g., various expressions of subjective pleasure) and implicit "liking" scores (2) there should be higher "wanting" scores in substance abusers or frequent substance users compared to non-users or infrequent users, and there should be no differences in "liking" between these groups (or even less "liking" in frequent substance users) (3) manipulations of "wanting" should affect implicit "wanting" scores whereas manipulations of "liking" should affect implicit "liking" scores. However, studies that tested these hypotheses did not produce equivocal results. To shed light on these discrepancies, we first discuss the different definitions of "wanting" and "liking" and the different tests that have been used to assess these processes. Then, we discuss whether it is reasonable to assume that these tests are valid measures of "wanting" and "liking" and we review correlational, quasi-experimental, and experimental studies that inform us about this issue. Finally, we discuss the future potential of implicit measures in research on IST and make several recommendations to improve both theory and methodology.
Intergenerational transmission of attentional bias and anxiety
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-01-2019
DOI: 10.1111/DESC.12772
Early increase of radiation-induced γH2AX foci in a human Ku70/80 knockdown cell line characterized by an enhanced radiosensitivity
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 2010
DOI: 10.1269/JRR.10033
Abstract: A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of DNA repair after exposure to ionizing radiation represents a research priority aimed at improving the outcome of clinical radiotherapy. Because of the close association with DNA double strand break (DSB) repair, phosphorylation of the histone H2AX protein (γH2AX), quantified by immunodetection, has recently been used as a method to study DSB induction and repair at low and clinically relevant radiation doses. However, the lack of consistency in literature points to the need to further validate the role of H2AX phosphorylation in DSB repair and the use of this technique to determine intrinsic radiosensitivity. In the present study we used human mammary epithelial MCF10A cells, characterized by a radiosensitive phenotype due to reduced levels of the Ku70 and Ku80 repair proteins, and investigated whether this repair-deficient cell line displays differences in the phosphorylation pattern of H2AX protein compared to repair-proficient MCF10A cells. This was established by measuring formation and disappearance of γH2AX foci after irradiating synchronized cell populations with (60)Co γ-rays. Our results show statistically significant differences in the number of γH2AX foci between the repair-deficient and -proficient cell line, with a higher amount of γH2AX foci present at early times post-irradiation in the Ku-deficient cell line. However, the disappearance of those differences at later post-irradiation times questions the use of this assay to determine intrinsic radiosensitivity, especially in a clinical setting.
Limited transfer of threat bias following attentional retraining
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2012
DOI: 10.1016/J.JBTEP.2011.11.001
Abstract: Anxiety-related attentional bias for threat is considered an important risk factor for the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. In line with this idea, recent studies have illustrated that experimentally induced changes in attentional bias have an impact on both non-clinical and clinical levels of anxiety. Still, little is known about the potential transfer of computerized training of attention to different components of attentional processing of threat. In the present study, we trained participants to either avoid or attend towards threatening pictures in a dot probe task, and we examined whether this attentional training transferred to a measure of emotional interference. Despite our successful manipulation of attentional bias in the dot probe task, we found no generalization of the attentional training to the interference task. It is possible that our study lacked statistical power to reveal possible group differences in the interference task. Our study shows that attentional training using the dot probe task may influence the amount of attention that is given to the spatial location of threat, but not necessarily the amount of attention that is given to the semantic content of stimuli.
Assessing anxiety-linked impairment in attentional control without eye-tracking: The masked-target antisaccade task
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 12-07-2021
Abstract: Contemporary cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing propose that heightened levels of anxiety vulnerability are associated with a decreasing ability to inhibit the allocation of attention toward task-irrelevant information. Existing performance-based research has most often used eye-movement assessment variants of the antisaccade paradigm to demonstrate such effects. Critically however, eye-movement assessment methods are limited by expense, the need for expert training in administration, and limited mobility and scalability. These barriers have likely led to researchers using suboptimal methods of assessing the relationship between attentional control and anxiety vulnerability. The present study examined the capacity for a non-eye-movement based variant of the antisaccade task, the masked-target antisaccade task (Guitton et al., 1985), to detect anxiety-linked differences in attentional control. Participants (N = 342) completed an assessment of anxiety vulnerability and performed the masked-target antisaccade task in an online assessment session. Greater levels of anxiety vulnerability predicted poorer performance on the task, consistent with findings observed from eye-movement methods and with cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing. Result also revealed the task to have high internal reliability. Our findings indicate the masked-target antisaccade task provides a psychometrically reliable, low-cost, mobile, and scalable assessment of anxiety-linked differences in attentional control.
The role of performance beliefs in the difference between self-report and behavioural measures of attentional control and their relationship with anxiety
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2023
Reliability and convergence of approach/avoidance bias assessment tasks in the food consumption domain
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-07-2023
DOI: 10.1177/17470218221108270
Abstract: Theories of motivation posit that people will more readily approach positive or appetitive stimuli, and there has been growing interest in the relationship between biases in approach and avoidance behaviours for food cues and food craving and consumption behaviour. Two paradigms commonly employed by research to investigate this relationship are the approach-avoidance task (AAT) and the stimulus-response compatibility task (SRCT). However, it is yet to be determined whether the measures yielded by these tasks reflect the same processes operating in the food craving and consumption domain. The present study examined the internal reliability and convergence of AAT and SRCT paradigms in their assessment of biased approach to unhealthy compared with healthy food stimuli, and whether the measures yielded by the AAT and SRCT paradigms demonstrated associations with in idual differences in food craving and eating behaviour. One hundred twenty-one participants completed an SRCT, an AAT using an arm movement response mode, and an AAT using a key-press response mode. The measures yielded comparable and acceptable levels of internal consistency, but convergence between the different task bias scores was modest or absent, and only approach bias as measured with the AAT task using an arm movement response mode was associated with self-report measures of eating behaviour and trait food craving. Thus, tasks did not converge strongly enough to be considered equivalent measures of approach/avoidance biases, and the AAT task using an arm movement response seems uniquely suited to detect approach biases argued to characterise maladaptive eating behaviour and craving.
Attention bias modification training under working memory load increases the magnitude of change in attentional bias
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.JBTEP.2017.02.003
Abstract: Attention bias modification (ABM) procedures have shown promise as a therapeutic intervention, however current ABM procedures have proven inconsistent in their ability to reliably achieve the requisite change in attentional bias needed to produce emotional benefits. This highlights the need to better understand the precise task conditions that facilitate the intended change in attention bias in order to realise the therapeutic potential of ABM procedures. Based on the observation that change in attentional bias occurs largely outside conscious awareness, the aim of the current study was to determine if an ABM procedure delivered under conditions likely to preclude explicit awareness of the experimental contingency, via the addition of a working memory load, would contribute to greater change in attentional bias. Bias change was assessed among 122 participants in response to one of four ABM tasks given by the two experimental factors of ABM training procedure delivered either with or without working memory load, and training direction of either attend-negative or avoid-negative. Findings revealed that avoid-negative ABM procedure under working memory load resulted in significantly greater reductions in attentional bias compared to the equivalent no-load condition. The current findings will require replication with clinical s les to determine the utility of the current task for achieving emotional benefits. These present findings are consistent with the position that the addition of a working memory load may facilitate change in attentional bias in response to an ABM training procedure.
The effects of left DLPFC tDCS on emotion regulation, biased attention, and emotional reactivity to negative content
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-10-2020
No trait anxiety linked differences in affective and non-affective task-switching
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2024
Effects of cognitive load during interpretation bias modification on interpretation bias and stress reactivity
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2020
Mindfulness-based therapy for social anxiety disorder
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2014
When deception becomes easy
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 03-11-2015
Explicit and implicit self-esteem and their associations with symptoms of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 31-05-2023
Reliability and validity of measures of attentional bias towards threat in unselected student samples: seek, but will you find?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-05-2019
DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2019.1609423
Abstract: Although attentional bias (AB) is considered a key characteristic of anxiety problems, the psychometric properties of most AB measures are either problematic or unknown. We conducted two experiments in which we addressed the reliability, convergent validity, and concurrent validity of different AB measures in unselected student s les. In Experiment 1 (
Effects of interpretation bias modification on unregulated and regulated emotional reactivity
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.JBTEP.2019.03.009
Abstract: Although induced changes in interpretation bias can lead to reduced levels of stress reactivity, results are often inconsistent. One possible cause of the inconsistencies in the effects of interpretation bias modification (IBM) on stress reactivity is the degree to which participants engaged in emotion regulation while being exposed to stressors. In this study, we distinguished between the effects of IBM on natural, unregulated stress reactivity and the effects of IBM on people's ability to up- or downregulate this stress reactivity. Both in the context of general anxiety (Experiment 1, N = 59) and social anxiety (Experiment 2, N = 54), we trained participants to interpret ambiguous scenarios in either a positive or a negative manner, and we assessed the effects on unregulated and regulated stress reactivity. Although we found relatively consistent training-congruent changes in interpretation bias in both experiments, these changes had no effect on either unregulated or regulated stress reactivity. In both experiments, we used healthy student s les and relatively mild emotional stressors. In line with previous research, our findings suggest that the effects of IBM on unregulated stress reactivity may be small and inconsistent. Differences in the extent to which participants engaged in emotion regulation during stressor exposure are unlikely to account for these inconsistencies.
For there is nothing either good or bad
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-05-2022
DOI: 10.1186/S12888-022-03950-Y
Abstract: Despite increasing interest in the association between mindfulness and reduced trauma vulnerability, and the use of mindfulness in the latest interventions for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), few studies have examined the mechanisms through which mindfulness may influence post-trauma psychopathology. The present study aimed to determine whether negative interpretation bias, the tendency to interpret ambiguous information as negative or threatening rather than positive or safe, mediates the association between higher levels of trait mindfulness and lower levels of PTSD symptoms. Negative interpretation bias was examined due to prior evidence indicating it is associated with being less mindful and post trauma psychopathology. The study examined 133 undergraduate students who reported exposure to one or more potentially traumatic events in their lifetime. Participants completed self-report measures of trait mindfulness (Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire – Short Form FFMQ-SF) and PTSD symptoms (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist – Civilian version PCL-C) as well an interpretation bias task that assessed the degree to which participants interpreted a range of everyday hypothetical scenarios to be threatening to their physical and/or psychological wellbeing. Results of a mediation analysis indicated a significant negative direct effect of trait mindfulness on PTSD symptomatology ( p .001). There was no evidence that negative interpretation bias mediated this relationship [BCa CI [-0.04, 0.03)], nor was it associated with trait mindfulness ( p = .90) and PTSD symptomatology ( p = .37). The results of the current study provide further evidence of the link between trait mindfulness and reduced post-trauma psychopathology while providing no support for the role of negative interpretation bias in this relationship.
A review of current evidence for the causal impact of attentional bias on fear and anxiety.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 05-2014
DOI: 10.1037/A0034834
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 in idual differences in attentional bias are related to in idual differences in fear or anxiety. In line with a causal relation, some studies show that attentional bias precedes fear or anxiety in time. However, other studies show that fear and anxiety can precede the onset of attentional bias, suggesting circular or reciprocal causality. Importantly, a recent line of experimental research shows that changes in attentional bias can lead to changes in anxiety. Yet changes in fear and anxiety also lead to changes in attentional bias, which confirms that the relation between attentional bias and fear and anxiety is unlikely to be unidirectional. Finally, a similar causal relation between interpretation bias and anxiety has been documented. In sum, there is evidence in favor of causality, yet a strict unidirectional cause-effect model is unlikely to hold. The relation between attentional bias and fear and anxiety is best described as a bidirectional, maintaining, or mutually reinforcing relation.
Induction and disappearance of γH2AX foci and formation of micronuclei after exposure of human lymphocytes to ⁶⁰Co γ-rays and p(66)+ Be(40) neutrons
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-10-2014
DOI: 10.3109/09553002.2014.860252
Abstract: To investigate both the formation of micronuclei (MN) and the induction and subsequent loss of phosphorylated histone H2AX foci (γH2AX foci) after in vitro exposure of human lymphocytes to either (60)Co γ-rays or p(66)+ Be(40) neutrons. MN dose response (DR) curves were obtained by exposing isolated lymphocytes of 10 different donors to doses ranging from 0-4 Gy γ-rays or 0-2 Gy neutrons. Also, γH2AX foci DR curves were obtained following exposure to doses ranging from 0-0.5 Gy of either γ-rays or neutrons. Foci kinetics for lymphocytes for a single donor exposed to 0.5 Gy γ-rays or neutrons were studied up to 24 hours post-irradiation. Micronuclei yields following neutron exposure were consistently higher compared to that from (60)Co γ-rays. All MN yields were over-dispersed compared to a Poisson distribution. Over-dispersion was higher after neutron irradiation for all doses > 0.1 Gy. Up to 4 hours post-irradiation lower yields of neutron-induced γH2AX foci were observed. Between 4 and 24 hours the numbers of foci from neutrons were consistently higher than that from γ-rays. The half-live of foci disappearance is only marginally longer for neutrons compared to that from γ-rays. Foci formations were more likely to be over-dispersed for neutron irradiations. Although neutrons are more effective to induce MN, the absolute number of induced γH2AX foci are less at first compared to γ-rays. With time neutron-induced foci are more persistent. These findings are helpful for using γH2AX foci in biodosimetry and to understand the repair of neutron-induced cellular damage.
Effects of attention training on self-reported, implicit, physiological and behavioural measures of spider fear
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.JBTEP.2010.12.004
Abstract: Cognitive theories hold that biased attention to threat plays a prominent role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. In support of this view, attention training has been shown to affect emotional reactivity. An important limitation of most attention training studies is that they almost exclusively rely on self-report measures to assess changes in fear. In the present study, we trained attention towards or away from spiders. We assessed not only self-reported spider fear, but also implicit spider associations, physiological, and behavioural measures of spider fear. Although we successfully changed the attentional processing of spiders, attention training had no effect on any of the outcome variables. These results indicate that changes in attentional bias are not necessarily associated with changes in fear, suggesting that attention training may be unsuitable as a clinical intervention for spider fear.
On the costs and benefits of directing attention towards or away from threat-related stimuli: A classical conditioning experiment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.BRAT.2010.04.001
Abstract: In attentional bias modification programs, in iduals are trained to attend away from threat in order to reduce emotional reactivity to stressful situations. However, attending towards threat is considered to be a prerequisite for fear reduction in other models of anxiety. We compared both views by manipulating attention towards or away from an acquired signal of threat. The strength of extinction and reacquisition was assessed with threat and US-expectancy ratings. We found more extinction in the attend towards threat group, compared to both the attend away from threat group and a control group in which attention was not manipulated. The results are in line with the Emotional Processing Theory and cognitive accounts of classical conditioning.
Assessing anxiety-linked impairment in attentional control without eye-tracking: The masked-target antisaccade task
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-03-2022
DOI: 10.3758/S13428-022-01800-Z
Abstract: Contemporary cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing propose that heightened levels of anxiety vulnerability are associated with a decreasing ability to inhibit the allocation of attention towards task-irrelevant information. Existing performance-based research has most often used eye-movement assessment variants of the antisaccade paradigm to demonstrate such effects. Critically, however, eye-movement assessment methods are limited by expense, the need for expert training in administration, and limited mobility and scalability. These barriers have likely led to researchers’ use of suboptimal methods of assessing the relationship between attentional control and anxiety vulnerability. The present study examined the capacity for a non-eye-movement-based variant of the antisaccade task, the masked-target antisaccade task (Guitton et al., 1985), to detect anxiety-linked differences in attentional control. Participants ( N = 342) completed an assessment of anxiety vulnerability and performed the masked-target antisaccade task in an online assessment session. Greater levels of anxiety vulnerability predicted poorer performance on the task, consistent with findings observed from eye-movement methods and with cognitive theories of anxiety and attention processing. Results also revealed the task to have high internal reliability. Our findings indicate that the masked-target antisaccade task provides a psychometrically reliable, low-cost, mobile, and scalable assessment of anxiety-linked differences in attentional control.
Modification of hostile attribution bias reduces self-reported reactive aggressive behaviour in adolescents
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2020
Conflicting rewards: effects of task goals on attention for alcohol cues
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-09-2020
DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2019.1664996
Abstract: Research has shown that temporary task goals capture more attention than negative, threatening cues, even in anxious in iduals. In the current study, we investigated whether temporary task goals would also capture more attention than alcohol-related cues. In Experiment 1, 59 hazardous drinkers performed both a modified dot-probe and a flanker task in which temporary goal- and alcohol-relevant stimuli were presented together. Results of the dot-probe task confirmed an attentional bias towards goal-relevant stimuli in the presence of alcohol cues. This effect was absent in a modified flanker task, although there was a general slowing when the targets appeared on top of goal-relevant stimuli, suggesting that goal-related backgrounds captured more attention than alcohol backgrounds. In Experiment 2, we replicated the dot-probe procedure in 29 hazardous drinkers who had been exposed to a prime dose of alcohol prior to performing the task. Our findings indicate that temporary goal stimuli are more salient than alcohol cues, which might lead the way to novel clinical applications.
Choose change: Situation modification, distraction, and reappraisal in mild versus intense negative situations
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-10-2020
DOI: 10.1007/S11031-019-09811-8
Abstract: Despite the theoretical importance and applied potential of situation modification as an emotion regulation strategy, empirical research on how people change situations to regulate their emotions is scarce. Meanwhile, existing paradigms typically allowed participants to avoid the entire situation, thus confounding situation modification with situation selection. In our current experiments, participants could choose between partially modifying their negative emotional environment without avoiding it entirely and two well-established emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and distraction). Participants did choose situation modification (Experiments 1–2) and they did so more often for intense than for mild stimuli in Experiment 2. In addition, modifying the stimulus display effectively helped downregulating negative affect (Experiments 1–2). Finally, in both experiments, participants opted more for distraction for intense compared to mild stimuli, while they opted more for reappraisal for mild compared to intense stimuli. Presenting a first step in developing a paradigm that allows people to exert control over but to not avoid emotion-provoking situations, we thus show that changing one’s environment helps regulating one’s emotions. More generally, our findings indicate that people prefer to regulate their emotions using disengagement strategies (situation modification and distraction) with high-intensity relative to low-intensity negative situations, while they prefer engagement strategies (reappraisal) with low-intensity relative to high-intensity negative situations.
Affect, Dual-Processing, Developmental Psychopathology, and Health Behaviors
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 24-05-2018
DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780190499037.003.0008
Abstract: This chapter discusses dual-process models of (health) behaviors, regarding both their recent criticisms and implications for health interventions. It agrees with critics that impulsive and reflective processes should not be equated with specific brain processes, but that psychological processes are emergent properties of the dynamic unfolding interplay between different neural systems. It maintains that at a psychological level of description, these models can still be useful to understand challenges to health behaviors and possible interventions. Affective processes can influence impulsive decision-making in health, but also reflective processes, when they concern affectively relevant goals. Cognitive training methods, including cognitive bias modification and training of executive control, have shown some success in changing health behaviors, but a critical variable for long-term success appears to be motivation to change.
Frontal tDCS and emotional reactivity to negative content: Examining the roles of biased interpretation and emotion regulation
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-10-2021
Reliability and Convergence of Approach/Avoidance Bias Assessment Tasks in the Food Consumption Domain
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 10-08-2021
Abstract: Theories of motivation posit that people will more readily approach positive or appetitive stimuli while they are more likely to avoid negative or aversive stimuli. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the relationship between biases in approach and avoidance behaviours for food cues and food craving and consumption behaviour. Two paradigms commonly employed by research to investigate this relationship are the Approach Avoidance Task (AAT) and the Stimulus Response Compatibility Task (SRCT). However, it is yet to be determined whether the measures yielded by these tasks reflect the same processes operating in the food craving and consumption domain. The purpose of the present study will be to address whether the AAT and SRCT paradigms provide internally reliable and convergent measures in their assessment of approach/avoidance bias to healthy and unhealthy food stimuli, and whether measures of approach/avoidance biases to healthy and unhealthy food yielded by the AAT and SRCT paradigms demonstrate comparable associations with in idual differences in food craving and eating behaviour. The study will require participants to complete an SRCT, and two task variants of the AAT, and an estimate of participants’ approach bias towards unhealthy food relative to healthy food will be computed from each. Analyses will determine the internal reliability of each of the approach bias scores, the degree to which the approach bias scores show convergent validity, and the degree to which the approach bias scores from each task are concurrently associated with in idual differences in food craving and eating behaviour.
Startling secrets: Startle eye blink modulation by concealed crime information
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2007
DOI: 10.1016/J.BIOPSYCHO.2007.06.001
Abstract: We used the startle eye blink paradigm to investigate the processes underlying physiological responding to concealed information. Autonomic responding was measured together with eye blink responses to startle probes presented during mock crime and control pictures. Based upon 'orienting theory', greater startle modulation to crime pictures in comparison to control pictures was expected. The electrodermal, heart rate and respiratory changes in Experiment 1 (n=29) showed enhanced orienting to the crime pictures, but we observed reduced rather than enhanced startle modulation. In Experiment 2 (n=91) and Experiment 3 (n=38), participants either were or were not instructed to inhibit physiological responding in order to test whether inhibition was an explanation for the pattern of startle blink responding. Reduced startle modulation was observed only when participants inhibited physiological responding, confirming the proposed role of inhibition. The data suggest that not only orienting, but also inhibition contributes to physiological responding to concealed information.
Gamification of cognitive bias modification for interpretations in anxiety increases training engagement and enjoyment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.JBTEP.2022.101727
Abstract: Interpretation bias plays a crucial role in anxiety. To test the causal role and potential clinical benefits, training procedures were developed to experimentally change interpretation bias. However, these procedures are monotonous and plain, which could negatively affect motivation and adherence. The aim of this study was to make the interpretation training more engaging and enjoyable, without compromising its effectiveness, through gamification. The training was gamified by including extrinsically and intrinsically motivating elements such as points, scores, time-pressure, fun and adaptive elements (training at an in idually challenging level). A 2 (Type: Gamified vs. Standard) x 2 (Training Valence: Positive vs. Placebo) between-subjects design was used with random allocation of 79 above-average anxious in iduals. Post-training, we assessed the liking and recommendation of the training task, interpretation bias (Recognition task and the Scrambled Sentence Task) and anxiety. Participants experienced the gamified training tasks as more engaging and enjoyable than the standard tasks, although it was not recommend more to fellow-students. Both positive training conditions (gamified and standard) were successful in eliciting a positive interpretation bias when assessed with the Recognition task, while only the standard positive training impacted on interpretations when assessed with the Scrambled Sentence Task. No differential effects were observed on anxiety. The study involved only a single-session training and participants were selected for high trait (and not social) anxiety. The gamified training was evaluated more positively by the participants, while maintaining the effectiveness of eliciting positive interpretations when assessed with the Recognition task. This suggests that gamification might be a promising new approach.
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