Practice makes perfect: Training the interpretation of emotional ambiguity

The interpretation of emotionally ambiguous words, sentences, or scenarios can be altered through training procedures that are collectively called cognitive bias modification for interpretation (CBM-I). In three experiments, we systematically manipulated the nature of the training in order to discriminate between emotional priming and ambiguity resolution accounts of training effects. In Experiment 1 participants completed word fragments that were consistently related to either a negative or benign interpretation of an ambiguous sentence. In a subsequent semantic priming task they demonstrated an interpretation bias, in that they were faster to identify relatedness of targets that were associated with the training-congruent meaning of an emotionally ambiguous homograph. We then manipulated the training sentences to show that interpretation bias was eliminated when participants simply completed valenced word fragments following unrelated sentences (Experiment 2), or completed fragments that were related to emotional but unambiguous sentences (Experiment 3). Only when participants were required to actively resolve emotionally ambiguous sentences during training did changes in interpretation emerge at test. Findings suggest that CBM-I achieves its effects by altering a production rule that aids the selection of meaning from emotionally ambiguous alternatives, in line with an ambiguity resolution account.     

Gender differences in salivary alpha-amylase and attentional bias towards negative facial expressions following acute stress induction

This study investigated gender differences in two key processes involved in anxiety, arousal and attentional bias towards threat. Arousal was assessed using salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), a biomarker of noradrenergic arousal and attention bias using a dot-probe task. Twenty-nine women and 27 men completed the dot-probe task and provided saliva samples before and after a stress induction [cold pressor stress (CPS) test]. Women displayed a significant increase in arousal (sAA) following the stressor compared to men, who displayed a significant reduction in arousal. Reaction time data revealed a significant avoidance of threat in women at baseline, but a significant change to an attention bias towards threat following the stressor. Men did not significantly respond to the stressor in terms of attentional bias. These findings suggest that women are more reactive to a stressor than men, and display an initial avoidance response to threat, but an attentional bias towards threat following stress.     

Attentional bias to respiratory- and anxiety-related threat in children with asthma

This study investigated attentional biases in children with asthma. The study aimed at testing whether children with asthma are vigilant to asthma and/or anxiety cues. Thirty-six children (18 with asthma and 18 healthy controls) aged 9–12 completed a computerised dot probe task designed to measure attentional bias to three different categories of words: asthma, anxiety symptom and general negative emotion. Main caregiver anxiety was also assessed, as was frequency of inhaler use for those with asthma. Children with asthma showed an attentional bias towards asthma words but not anxiety or general negative emotion words. Children without asthma showed no significant attentional biases to any word categories. Caregiver anxiety was correlated with asthma word attentional bias in the asthma group. The findings indicate that attentional bias is present in children with asthma. Further research is required to ascertain if this exacerbates or maintains health-related problems.     

Longevity of attentional bias modification effects for food cues in overweight and obese individuals

Accumulating evidence shows that overweight individuals exhibit an attentional bias for food and that this bias can be modified. This study investigated the longevity of such modification effects. Using a dot probe paradigm, a community sample of overweight and obese women (N = 104) was trained to direct attention towards (‘attend’) or away from (‘avoid’) food pictures. Participants completed five weekly training sessions. Attentional bias was measured before and after training, at 24 h and one-week follow-up. To increase generalisability, at each of the post-training and follow-up assessments, participants were shown a mix of old and new food pictures. They also completed another implicit bias measure, i.e. a word stem task. Attentional bias for food increased in the ‘attend’ group and decreased in the ‘avoid’ group. These retraining effects were maintained at 24 h and one-week follow-up, and extended to new food pictures. Participants in the ‘avoid’ group also produced relatively fewer food words on the word stem task than those in the ‘attend’ group. Results are consistent with predictions of cognitive-motivational models that attentional biases are malleable. They further suggest that attentional bias modification, which targets the implicit processes that underlie the heightened food responsivity in overweight individuals, could help combat pathological (over)eating.     

焦虑障碍的认知偏向矫正元分析:效果量、影响因素及中介检验

焦虑障碍的认知偏向矫正效果及作用机制是当前一个研究热点且有争议的主题。采用元分析、元回归分析并且组合两步结构方程元分析技术,探索认知偏向矫正对焦虑障碍干预的临床和亚临床有效性,分析可能的影响因素并考察认知偏向改变在认知偏向矫正(Cognitive Bias Modification,CBM)和焦虑症状之间的中介作用。元分析共纳入46篇文献,CBM对焦虑症状干预具有虽小但显著的效果量(包含非标准化测量:g=0.29;标准化测量:g=0.26,p0.001;压力任务后焦虑症状g=0.34,p0.001),对认知偏向有中等效果量(g=0.48,p0.001);干预范式、出版特征、实验环境是焦虑症状CBM效果量的调节因素,焦虑障碍类型和实验环境对CBM认知偏向效果量有调节作用;认知偏向改变在CBM干预与焦虑障碍改变之间起显著的中介效应(z=3.13,SE=0.014,p0.001),为部分中介。将来研究可关注提升CBM症状测量或者认知偏向测量工具的信效度、发展新干预范式,尝试CBM同其他干预方式相结合,进一步探索CBM理论基础和干预机制,提升干预效果。     

Early group bias in the Faroe Islands: Cultural variation in children's group-based reasoning

Recent developmental research demonstrates that group bias emerges early in childhood. However, little is known about the extent to which bias in minimal (i.e., arbitrarily assigned) groups varies with children's environment and experience, and whether such bias is universal across cultures. In this study, the development of group bias was investigated using a minimal groups paradigm with 46 four- to six-year-olds from the Faroe Islands. Children observed in-group and out-group members exhibiting varying degrees of prosocial behaviour (egalitarian or stingy sharing). Children did not prefer their in-group in the pretest, but a pro-in-group and anti-out-group sentiment emerged in both conditions in the posttest. Faroese children's response patterns differ from those of American children [Schug, M. G., Shusterman, A., Barth, H., & Patalano, A. L. (2013). Minimal-group membership influences children's responses to novel experience with group members. Developmental Science, 16(1), 47–55], suggesting that intergroup bias shows cultural variation even in a minimal groups context.     

Reasoning,biases and dual processes: The lasting impact of Wason (1960)

Wason (1960) published a relatively short experimental paper, in which he introduced the 2-4-6 problem as a test of inductive reasoning. This paper became one of the most highly cited to be published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology and is significant for a number of reasons. First, the 2-4-6 task itself was ingenious and yielded evidence of error and bias in the intelligent participants who attempted it. Research on the 2-4-6 problem continues to the present day. More importantly, it was Wason's first paper on reasoning and one which made strong claims for bias and irrationality in a period dominated by rationalist writers like Piaget. It set in motion the study of cognitive biases in thinking and reasoning, well before the start of Tversky and Kahneman's famous heuristics and biases research programme. I also show here something for which Wason has received insufficient credit. It was Wason's work on this task and his later studies of his four card selection task that led to the first development of the dual process theory of reasoning which is so dominant in the current literature on the topic more than half a century later.     

Racial Differences in Attributions,Perceived Criticism,and Upset: A Study With Black and White Community Participants

The primary aims of the current investigation were (a) to examine the relationships among attributions, perceived constructive and destructive criticism, and upset due to criticism and (b) to explore racial differences in mean levels of attributions, perceived criticism, upset due to criticism, and warmth in a community sample of Blacks and Whites (N = 272). The Attributions of Criticism Scale (ACS) was used to measure participants’ attributions regarding criticism from their relatives. No racial differences were found in mean levels of attributions or type of perceived criticism. However, Blacks were significantly less upset by perceived criticism from their relatives than Whites. When the relationships between attributions, perceived criticism, and upset were explored, results showed that positive attributions were associated with greater perceived constructive criticism and less upset due to criticism, whereas negative attributions were associated with greater perceived destructive criticism and more upset. Perceptions of relatives’ warmth were also associated with greater perceived constructive criticism and less perceived destructive criticism, but warmth was only related to less upset for Blacks and not Whites. Findings suggest that attributions and warmth play an important role in the perception of criticism and the extent to which individuals become upset in response to criticism from loved ones. Results also point to potential racial differences in mean levels of these variables and the associations among them.     

情感预测偏差的相关研究评述

情感预测是预测将来的情绪状态。情感预测时会表现出各种偏差, 例如免疫性忽略、聚焦错觉和共情鸿沟。本文从认知–体验自我理论和心理模拟的角度对情感预测偏差的原因进行了整合, 对情感预测偏差的个体差异和矫正进行了分析。情感预测的未来研究方向应该从心理-行为机制、进化机制和脑机制几个方面展开。     

Incremental Validity of Perceived Control Dimensions in the Differential Prediction of Interpretive Biases for Threat

This study evaluated whether a diminished perception of control over environmental and interoceptive events differentially predicted interpretive biases for threat for ambiguous scenarios. The sample had 95 participants without a history of psychopathology. Results indicated that the internal dimension of the Anxiety Control Questionnaire (ACQ; R. M. Rapee, M. G. Craske, T. A. Brown, & D. H. Barlow, 1996) was predictive of interpretive biases for internal scenarios above and beyond demographic variables, subclinical panic attack history, and state anxiety; the external control subscale of the ACQ also was predictive of internal rank-ordered responses. The ACQ external dimension was predictive of interpretive responses for external scenarios beyond the effects accounted for by the other predictor variables, including perceived control for internal events. These findings provide initial correlational evidence consistent with cognitive–behavioral accounts of panic disorder that posit a perceived lack of control over aversive events may exacerbate an interpretive bias for threat.