Eye-Tracking Based Visual Search Training in Social Anxiety: Effects on Attentional Bias, Attentional Control, Gaze Behavior, and Anxious Responses to a Speech Task
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background
Attentional bias modification (ABM) is a computerized treatment for anxiety. Most ABMs using a dot-probe task aim to direct anxious individuals’ attention away from threats. Recently, a new ABM approach using a visual search task (i.e., ABM-positive-search) has been developed to facilitate the allocation of attention toward positive stimuli. This study examined the efficacies of two versions of ABM-positive-search in socially anxious individuals.
Methods
Eighty-six participants were randomly assigned to the search positive in threat (SP-T; n = 28), search positive in neutral (SP-N; n = 29), or control training (CT) (n = 29) group. All participants completed four training sessions within two weeks. Attentional bias, attentional control, self-report social anxiety, and anxiety responses (i.e., subjective anxiety, psychophysiological reactivity, and gaze behavior) to the speech task were assessed pre-training and post-training.
Results
Results showed that ABM-positive-search trainings facilitated disengagement from threats compared to CT. Regardless of group, participants exhibited a reduction in attention allocation to negative feedback during speech. However, only SP-N increased attention allocation to positive feedback. Participants in three groups showed a decrease in subjective anxiety but no changes in psychophysiological reactivity to speech challenge from pre-training to post-training. ABM-positive-search trainings had no beneficial effects on attentional control or self-report social anxiety when compared with CT.
Conclusions
The findings do not support the efficacy of ABM-positive-search trainings for social anxiety.
期刊介绍:
Cognitive Therapy and Research (COTR) focuses on the investigation of cognitive processes in human adaptation and adjustment and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It is an interdisciplinary journal welcoming submissions from diverse areas of psychology, including cognitive, clinical, developmental, experimental, personality, social, learning, affective neuroscience, emotion research, therapy mechanism, and pharmacotherapy.