title: Does attention redirection contribute to the effectiveness of attention bias modification on social anxiety?
abstract: Attention bias modification (ABM) is designed to modify threat-related attention bias and thus alleviate anxiety. The current research examined whether consistently directing attention towards targeted goals per se contributes to ABM efficacy. We randomly assigned 68 non-clinical college students with elevated social anxiety to non-valence-specific attend-to-geometrics (AGC), attention modification (AMC), or attention control (ACC) conditions. We assessed subjective, behavioral, and physiological reactivity to a speech task and self-reported social anxiety symptoms. After training, participants in the AMC exhibited an attention avoidance from threat, and those in the AGC responded more rapidly toward targeted geometrics. There was a significant pre- to post-reduction in subjective speech distress across groups, but behavioral and physiological reactivity to speech, as well as self-report social anxiety symptoms, remained unchanged. These results lead to questions concerning effectiveness of ABM training for reducing social anxiety. Further examination of the current ABM protocol is required.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, PR China. Electronic address: yns0903@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Nisha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Hongyu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, PR China. Electronic address: qmy@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Mingyi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, PR China.
authors.forename: Songwei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057566:Self Report; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention bias; Attention bias modification; Non-valence-specific change; Subclinical anxiety; Valence-specific change