Limited generalisation of changes in attentional bias following attentional bias modification with the visual probe task
Open accessAbstract
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.
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AB assessment methods include visual probe, spatial cueing, modified Stroop, flanker, and visual search tasks.
“AB assessment methods include visual probe, spatial cueing, modified Stroop, flanker, and visual search tasks [6,7,12,19,35,53-55,86,98-100].”
From Anxiety and Threat-Related Attention: Cognitive-Motivational Framework and Treatment (2018) · cites this paper as [86]
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- Authors
- Van Bockstaele, B., Salemink, E., Bögels, S. M., & Wiers, R. W.
- Affiliations
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
- Venue
- Cognition and Emotion
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2015-10-23
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 369-376
- ISSN
- 0269-9931 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-0600
- OpenAlex
- W1782572835
- Cited by
- 26
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 5.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- handle.uba.uva.nl
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Cognition & Emotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (publishedVersion)
- UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (VENI 451-10-029,VICI 453-08-001)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- attentional bias modification, attentional bias, visual probe task, dot-probe task, exogenous cueing, visual search, angry facial expressions, anxiety
- MeSH terms
- Attentional Bias, Facial Expression, Female, Generalization, Psychological, Humans, Male, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Young Adult
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