Attentional bias modification based on visual probe task: methodological issues, results and clinical relevance

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes,Fernanda Machado
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Viacava,Keitiline R., Bizarro,Lisiane
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2237-60892015003400183
• topic: Behavior therapy; cognitive therapy; outcome studies; experimental psychology

Introduction: Attentional bias, the tendency that a person has to drive or maintain attention to a specific class of stimuli, may play an important role in the etiology and persistence of mental disorders. Attentional bias modification has been studied as a form of additional treatment related to automatic processing. Objectives: This systematic literature review compared and discussed methods, evidence of success and potential clinical applications of studies about attentional bias modification (ABM) using a visual probe task. Methods: The Web of Knowledge, PubMed and PsycInfo were searched using the keywords attentional bias modification, attentional bias manipulation and attentional bias training. We selected empirical studies about ABM training using a visual probe task written in English and published between 2002 and 2014. Results: Fifty-seven studies met inclusion criteria. Most (78%) succeeded in training attention in the predicted direction, and in 71% results were generalized to other measures correlated with the symptoms. Conclusions: ABM has potential clinical utility, but to standardize methods and maximize applicability, future studies should include clinical samples and be based on findings of studies about its effectiveness.