Attention Bias Modification (ABM): Review of effects of multisession ABM training on anxiety and threat-related attention in high-anxious individuals

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Mogg, Karin
Waters, Allison
Bradley, Brendan P
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2017
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Abstract

Attention bias modification (ABM) aims to reduce anxiety by reducing attention bias (AB) to threat; however, effects on anxiety and AB are variable. This review examines 34 studies assessing effects of multisession-ABM on both anxiety and AB in high-anxious individuals. Methods include ABM-threat-avoidance (promoting attention-orienting away from threat), ABM-positive-search (promoting explicit, goal-directed attention-search for positive/nonthreat targets among negative/threat distractors), and comparison conditions (e.g., control-attention training combining threat-cue exposure and attention-task practice without AB-modification). Findings indicate anxiety reduction often occurs during both ABM-threat-avoidance and control-attention training; anxiety reduction is not consistently accompanied by AB reduction; anxious individuals often show no pretraining AB in orienting toward threat; and ABM-positive-search training appears promising in reducing anxiety. Methodological and theoretical issues are discussed concerning ABM paradigms, comparison conditions, and AB assessment. ABM methods combining explicit goal-directed attention-search for nonthreat/positive information and effortful threat-distractor inhibition (promoting top-down cognitive control during threat-cue exposure) warrant further evaluation.

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Clinical Psychological Science

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5

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4

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© The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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Psychology

Other psychology not elsewhere classified

Social Sciences

Science & Technology

Life Sciences & Biomedicine

Psychology, Clinical

Psychiatry

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Mogg, K; Waters, A; Bradley, BP, Attention Bias Modification (ABM): Review of effects of multisession ABM training on anxiety and threat-related attention in high-anxious individuals, Clinical Psychological Science, 2017, 5 (4), pp. 698-717

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