Attentional retraining procedures: manipulating early or late components of attentional bias?

Abstract

According to cognitive models of anxiety disorders, attentional bias for threatening information is a vulnerability factor to the etiology and maintenance of anxiety. A recently developed methodology to reduce attentional bias has been found to reduce emotional reactivity and anxiety. The present study aimed at identifying the effects of this attentional bias reduction on early and later stages of threat processing. Undergraduates were allocated to an attentional bias reduction (n = 23) versus control condition (n = 25). It was found that attentional bias reduction influenced late but not early stages of threat processing. This finding is of theoretical importance in relation to studies on the causal role of attentional bias and emotional reactivity. Moreover, the present findings also bear relevance to the clinical application of attentional retraining procedures.