1,721,175 research outputs found
Direction of threat attention bias predicts treatment outcome in anxious children receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy
No full textA bias to selectively direct attention to threat stimuli is a cognitive characteristic of anxiety disorders. Recent studies indicate that individual differences in pre-treatment threat attention bias predict treatment outcomes from cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in anxious individuals. However, there have been inconsistent findings regarding whether attention bias towards threat predicts better or poorer treatment outcome. Method: This longitudinal study examined treatment outcomes in 35 clinically anxious children following a 10-week, group-based CBT program, as a function of whether children showed a pre-treatment attention bias towards or away from threat stimuli. The effect of CBT on attention bias was also assessed. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement after receiving CBT. However, anxious children with a pre-treatment attention bias towards threat showed greater reductions not only in anxiety symptom severity, but also in the likelihood of meeting diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders at post-treatment assessment, in comparison with anxious children who showed a pre-treatment attention bias away from threat. Children who had a pre-treatment bias away from threat showed a reduction in this bias over the course of CBT. Conclusions: Findings suggest that pre-existing differences in the direction of attention towards versus away from threat could have important implications for the treatment of anxious children
Attention bias modification (ABM): Review of effects of multisession ABM training on anxiety and threat-related attention in high-anxious individuals
No full textAttention 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
Attentional bias towards angry faces in childhood anxiety disorders
No full textObjective: To examine attentional bias towards angry and happy faces in 8 to 12 year old children with anxiety disorders (n=29) and non-anxious controls (n=24).Method: Children completed a visual probe task in which pairs of angry/neutral and happy/neutral faces were displayed for 500 ms and were replaced by a visual probe in the spatial location of one of the faces.Results: Children with more severe anxiety showed an attentional bias towards angry relative to neutral faces, compared with anxious children who had milder anxiety and non-anxious control children, both of whom did not show an attentional bias for angry faces. Unexpectedly, all groups showed an attentional bias towards happy faces relative to neutral ones.Conclusions: Anxiety symptom severity increases attention to threat stimuli in anxious children. This association may be due to differing threat appraisal processes or emotion regulation strategies
Attention training towards positive stimuli in clinically anxious children
No full textAttention bias modification training (ABMT) is a promising treatment. Nevertheless, few studies examine its effectiveness in anxious children. This study examined the efficacy of such an ABMT protocol in pediatric anxiety. Method: 37 anxious children were randomly assigned to one of two ABMT conditions. In the attention-towards-positive (ATP) condition, children searched 3 x 3 matrices for a happy face amongst angry faces. In the attention-training-control (ATC) condition, they searched for a bird amongst flowers. Children completed 160 trials in each of four training sessions per week for three weeks at home (1920 total trials). Clinical and attention bias measures were assessed before and after ABMT. Results: Children randomized to ATP showed greater post-training attention bias towards happy faces than children randomized to ATC. ATP also produced significantly greater reductions in clinician-rated diagnostic severity and number of diagnoses, compared to ATC. In the ATP group, 50% of children who completed training did not meet criteria for their principal diagnosis, compared to 8% in the ATC group. Conclusion: Training anxious children to focus attention on positive features of their environment may be a promising treatment
Attentional bias for emotional faces in children with generalized anxiety disorder
No full textObjective: To examine attentional bias for angry and happy faces in 7- to 12-year-old children with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD; n = 23) and nonanxious controls (n = 25).Method: Children completed a visual probe task in which pairs of face stimuli were displayed for 500 milliseconds and were replaced by a visual probe in the spatial location of one of the faces.Results: Severely anxious children with GAD showed an attentional bias toward both angry and happy faces. Children with GAD with a milder level of anxiety and nonanxious controls did not show an attentional bias toward emotional faces. Moreover, within the GAD group, attentional bias for angry faces was associated with increased anxiety severity and the presence of social phobia.Conclusions: Biased attention toward threat as a function of increased severity in pediatric GAD may reflect differing threat appraisal processes or emotion regulation strategies.<br/
The time course of attentional bias for emotional faces in anxious children
No full textThe present study investigated the time course of attentional bias for angry and happy faces in 50 primary school-children (9 to 12 years). That is, the study examined the degree to which an anxiety-related attentional bias was moderated by the duration of threat exposure. Using a visual-probe task, children were shown angry and happy faces paired with neutral ones over two exposure durations: 500 and 1250 ms. Results revealed that higher levels of anxiety were associated with an attentional bias towards angry faces across the 500 ms and 1250 ms exposure durations. There were no effects of children’s anxiety or stimulus exposure duration on attentional bias for happy faces. Results are discussed in relation to threat-monitoring versus vigilance-avoidance patterns of attentional bias, and developmental considerations, including comparison with findings from studies of anxiety-related attentional biases in adults
Predictors of treatment outcomes in anxious children receiving group cognitive-behavioural therapy: Pre-treatment attention bias to threat and emotional variability during exposure tasks.
No full textBackground and objectives: Pretreatment attention bias towards threat stimuli has been shown to predict treatment outcomes following exposure-based treatments. The extent of emotional variability experienced during exposure therapy has also been found to predict better treatment outcomes in anxious adults. The present study examined whether pretreatment attention bias towards threat stimuli and greater emotional variability during exposure activities were associated with stronger treatment outcomes in anxious children receiving group-based cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Methods: Twenty-six anxious children completed a visual probe task with emotional faces, followed by a 10-week CBT program in a group format. Children completed weekly within-session exposure activities during the last 5 weeks of group CBT. Results: Pretreatment attention bias towards threat stimuli, greater emotional variability and within-session habituation during exposure activities were significantly associated with reductions in clinician- and/or parent-rated anxiety symptoms after the 10-week CBT program. Treatment responders had significantly higher peak emotional distress ratings during exposure activities. However, threat attention bias and within-session exposure measures were not significantly related. Conclusions: Pre-existing individual differences in attention bias to threat cues and the degree of emotional reactivity experienced during exposure activities are both important independent predictors of treatment outcomes for anxious children receiving group-based CBT
A preliminary evaluation of a home-based, computer-delivered attention training treatment for anxious children living in regional communities
No full textMany children with anxiety disorders live in communities with limited access to treatment. Attention bias modification training, a promising computer-based treatment for anxiety disorders, may provide a readily accessible treatment. Recent evidence suggests that a form of ABMT combining visual-search for positive stimuli with features to enhance learning, memory and treatment engagement reduces anxiety in children. The present study builds upon this research by comparing parent-implemented, visual-search attention training to positive stimuli (ATP) (N = 22) with a waitlist control group (WLC) (N = 19) in children living in regional communities. Diagnostic, parent- and child-reports of anxiety and depressive symptoms and broad internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems were assessed pre- and post-condition. Children in the WLC completed visual-search ATP after the wait period and all participants completed a follow-up assessment six-months after treatment. At post-treatment/wait period, children in the ATP condition showed greater improvements on clinician- and parent-report measures compared to children in the WLC. Similar post-treatment outcomes as those found for the ATP condition were observed at the six-month follow-up after all children had received ATP. Moreover, children who showed greater verbalization of explicit attention strategies related to positive search (assessed during treatment) achieved greater reductions in anxiety severity at post-treatment and six-month follow-up. Attention training towards positive stimuli using enhanced visual-search procedures appears to be a promising treatment for reaching anxious children living in regional communities
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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