Cited by 215Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesVisual Attention and Saliency Detection

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 100 of the 100 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 151 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Attention Bias Modification (ABM): Review of Effects of Multisession ABM Training on Anxiety and Threat-Related Attention in High-Anxious Individuals

Open access
Mogg, Karin, Waters, Allison M., Bradley, Brendan P.·2017·Clinical Psychological Science

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.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This qualitative review of 34 multisession RCTs in high-anxious individuals finds that ABM-threat-avoidance training has inconsistent anxiolytic effects relative to control-attention training, and anxiety reduction often occurs without reduction in preexisting threat-related attention bias. ABM-positive-search training appears promising for reducing anxiety, but evidence is limited to two included studies.

Key findings

  • In about two thirds of studies, ABM-threat-avoidance training was not more effective than comparison conditions in reducing anxiety; 8 studies found it superior to control-attention training, all experimenter-controlled, while 23 studies found no superiority (15 experimenter-controlled, 7 home-based, 1 assessing both settings).
  • Anxiety symptoms often reduced during both ABM-threat-avoidance and control-attention training, sometimes with moderate-to-large effects and often without change in AB to threat.
  • Most studies using standard visual-probe-task scores did not find pretraining AB in orienting toward threat in anxious individuals; anxiety reduction was not consistently accompanied by AB reduction.
  • In two ABM-positive-search studies, anxiety reduction was greater than control or waitlist: 50% of completers versus 8% in control training were free of their principal anxiety disorder in Waters et al. (2013), and 42% versus 8% of waitlist control in Waters et al. (2015).

Methods

  • Qualitative review; searched PsycInfo and Medline and checked reference lists for peer-reviewed English-language studies, identifying 34 studies published between 2008 and end of 2016 (33 publications, one describing two studies).
  • Inclusion criteria: multisession ABM training aimed at modifying threat-related AB and anxiety; threat and nonthreat stimuli; high-anxious subclinical or clinical participants; RCT design; pre-post assessment of anxiety symptoms and AB. Review articles and studies combining ABM with interpretive bias modification were excluded.
  • The review evaluated three predictions: greater anxiety reduction for ABM than comparison conditions, corresponding reduction in AB to threat, and pretraining AB to threat in anxious individuals; it distinguished ABM-threat-avoidance (32 studies) from ABM-positive-search (2 studies) and examined control conditions and AB measures.

Limitations

  • The paper states that a limitation is the small number of ABM-positive-search studies that have assessed effects on both AB and anxiety in anxious individuals.
  • The paper states that null pretraining AB findings must be interpreted cautiously because sample sizes tend to be modest, ABs are inferred indirectly from RT data, and RT-based AB measures have low reliability; it also notes dissemination bias, including publication bias and outcome-reporting bias.
  • The paper states that most studies, but not all, lacked non-attention-training comparison conditions, and that interpretation of AB change is complicated by divergent AB measures and by many studies assessing AB with the same or similar probe-based task used for training, which may reflect task-specific rules rather than generalized change in AB to threat.

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Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/2167702617696359

Cites

100 of 100 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Figures

Fig. 1. Bottom-up and top-down cognitive systems, and their component functions, which may contribute to anxiety and ABs to threat (adapted from Mogg & Bradley, 2016).
Fig. 1. Bottom-up and top-down cognitive systems, and their component functions, which may contribute to anxiety and ABs to threat (adapted from Mogg & Bradley, 2016).CC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

103 Not checked yet · 25 Own interpretation · 22 No basis given · 4 Own result · 1 Own method

Verify all 151 references — free account

Show all 90 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 53
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 16
65 of 65
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The included studies' measures of anxiety and attention bias are sufficiently valid and comparable to permit a qualitative synthesis of their findings.

    “In common with MacLeod and Clarke (2015), we conducted a qualitative review to allow detailed examination of variations in methodology and findings across studies that may be obscured in a quantitative review (Cristea et al., 2015).”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    ABM-threat-avoidance training assumes that anxious individuals have a preexisting AB to orient attention toward threat cues relative to nonthreat cues.

    “ABM-threat-avoidance training assumes that anxious individuals have a preexisting AB to orient attention toward threat cues relative to nonthreat cues”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The cognitive view assumes that low-anxious individuals are characterized by attentional avoidance of threat.

    “This view further assumes that low-anxious individuals are characterized by attentional avoidance of threat.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The anxiety-related AB toward threat is assumed to operate automatically and outside awareness.

    “the anxiety-related AB toward threat is assumed to operate automatically and outside awareness”
4 of 4

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Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. *Maoz K., 2013, Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, 7, 389
  2. Van Bockstaele B., 2015, Cognition and Emotion, 23, 1

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Metadata

Authors
Mogg, K., Waters, A. M., & Bradley, B. P.
Affiliations
  • University of Southampton (GB)
  • Griffith University (AU)
Corresponding author
Mogg, Karin
Venue
Clinical Psychological Science
Published
2017-04-26
Volume
5
Issue
4
Pages
698-717
ISSN
  • 2167-7026 (ISSN-L)
  • 2167-7034
OpenAlex
W2607627610
Cited by
215
References
100
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 7
FWCI
5.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Clinical Psychological Science (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
  • Griffith Research Online (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
Keywords
attentional bias modification, attention bias to threat, anxiety reduction, threat avoidance, top-down cognitive control, attentional orienting

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