Interpretation training influences memory for prior interpretations (original) (raw)
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Inducing a benign interpretational bias reduces trait anxiety
Journal of behavior therapy …, 2007
If negative interpretational bias causes emotional vulnerability, reduction of this bias should reduce proneness to anxiety. High trait-anxious volunteers were trained over four sessions to resolve descriptions of ambiguous events in an increasingly positive manner. This group subsequently made more positive interpretations of novel descriptions than did those in a test-retest control condition. Furthermore, trait anxiety scores reduced more in the trained group than in untrained controls. These results confirm earlier findings that modifying interpretation biases produces congruent changes in emotional vulnerability, and suggest a possible role for similar training methods in controlling pathological anxiety. r
Emotional Encoding Context Leads to Memory Bias in Individuals with High Anxiety
Brain sciences, 2017
We investigated whether anxious individuals, who adopt an inherently negative mindset, demonstrate a particularly salient memory bias for words tainted by negative contexts. To this end, sequentially presented target words, overlayed onto negative or neutral pictures, were studied in separate blocks (within-subjects) using a deep or shallow encoding instruction (between-subjects). Following study, in Test 1, participants completed separate recognition test blocks for the words overlayed onto the negative and the neutral contexts. Following this, in Test 2, participants completed a recognition test for the foils from each Test 1 block. We found a significant three-way interaction on Test 2, such that individuals with high anxiety who initially studied target words using a shallow encoding instruction, demonstrated significantly elevated memory for foils that were contained within the negative Test 1 block. Results show that during retrieval (Test 1), participants re-entered the mode ...
Effects of positive interpretive bias modification in highly anxious individuals
Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 2009
Over the past 20 years evidence has accumulated that individuals suffering from anxiety tend to interpret ambiguous information as threatening. Considering the causal role of this interpretive bias in anxiety, it was recently established that modifying interpretive biases influences anxiety. This suggests that anxiety can be clinically treated by directly targeting this interpretive bias. The present study was designed to modify a negative interpretive bias in highly anxious individuals, and subsequently assess the hypothesized beneficial effects on clinical measures. High trait-anxious participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a positive interpretational Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM-I) or a control condition (n = 2 Â 17). The program was offered online for eight consecutive days. Upon completing the program, participants who had followed positive CBM-I were less state and trait-anxious compared to the control group. Additionally, positively trained participants scored lower on a measure of general psychopathology . No effects were observed on social anxiety and stress vulnerability. The mixed pattern of findings renders them rather inconclusive, leaving interpretations of the potential therapeutic merits of CBM-I open for future research. ß
Cognitive Bias Modification of Expectancies (CBM-E): Effects on Interpretation Bias and Autobiographical Memory, and Relations with Social and Attachment Anxiety, 2019
Social anxiety is characterised by a bias to recall negative social autobiographical memories as well as anxious expectations about future social interactions. Neuroscientific research shows that a shared neural network underlies both temporal directions of autobiographical recall and future self-projections. Inspired by these findings, the current study tested the effectiveness of a Cognitive Bias Modification training to induce expectancies about the outcome of possible future social interactions (CBM-E). Its effects on interpretation bias, autobiographical recall and personal future projections were tested additionally. Participants read short social scenarios that could possibly happen to them in the future. Each scenario ended in word-fragment which, when completed, disambiguated the meaning of the scenario in either an optimistic or pessimistic way contingent on experimental condition. The CBM-E training was tested in 120 student participants and appeared effective in changing expectancies. The effect generalized to social interpretation bias (scrambled sentences). No direct effects of the training were found on autobiographical recall or future projections. However, participants trained to have pessimistic expectancies who had higher attachment anxiety showed a less positive interpretation bias related to the future. Furthermore, participants with high social anxiety reported less positive personal future projections when trained to have optimistic social expectancies.
Personality and Individual Differences, 2015
Emotional disorders have been related with attentional and memory biases, especially for emotional material. Recent research has shown that depression, dysphoria and high internalizing traits are related with an increase of false memories for negative events. However, it is not clear whether anxiety alone may imply the same effect and whether it applies to all emotional events or only negative ones. The present study examined these questions by using a paradigm based on pictorial scripted material to analyze inferential memory errors for negative, positive and neutral everyday events in high-anxious vs. control young adults. Results showed an increase in negative (but not positive) inferential false memories in high-anxious individuals, even after controlling for depression level. On the contrary, negative material reduced false memories in control participants, further supporting previous research. It is concluded that high trait anxiety enhances elaboration of negative emotional material, which eventually leads to misremember causal antecedents of negative events as previously experienced while they were only inferred.
Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 2012
Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a psychological risk factor for anxiety disorders. Negative interpretation biases are a maladaptive form of information-processing also associated with anxiety disorders. The present study explored whether AS and negative interpretation biases make independent contributions to variance in panic and generalized anxiety symptoms and whether particular interpretation bias domains (e.g., of ambiguous arousal sensations) have specific associations with panic and/or generalized anxiety symptoms. Eighty-nine female undergraduates (44 low AS; 45 high AS) completed measures of AS, interpretation biases, and panic and generalized anxiety symptoms. Findings showed that AS and negative interpretation biases both significantly added to the prediction of anxiety symptoms. Negative interpretations of ambiguous arousal sensations were uniquely associated with panic symptoms, while negative interpretations of ambiguous general and social events were uniquely associated with generalized anxiety symptoms. Findings support the conceptual validity of AS and negative interpretation biases and their unique and shared contributions to anxiety symptoms.
Facilitating a benign interpretation bias in a high socially anxious population
Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2007
Previous research has shown that high socially anxious individuals lack the benign interpretation bias present in people without social anxiety. The tendency of high socially anxious people to generate more negative interpretations may lead to anticipated anxiety about future social situations. If so, developing a more benign interpretation bias could lead to a reduction in this anxiety. The current study showed that a benign interpretation bias could be facilitated (or 'trained') in a high socially anxious population. Participants in the benign training groups had repeated practice in accessing benign (positive or non-negative) interpretations of potentially threatening social scenarios. Participants in the control condition were presented with the same social scenarios but without their outcomes being specified. In a later recognition task, participants who received benign interpretation training generated more benign, and less negative, interpretations of new ambiguous social situations compared to the control group. Participants who received benign training also predicted that they would be significantly less anxious in a future social situation than those in the control group. Possible implications of the findings for therapeutic interventions in social phobia are discussed. r
Worrying Facilitates Correct and False Memories about Negative Information
Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy, 2016
also physiologically) tendency to react anxiously or not (trait-anxiety) [4,8]. Chronic excessive and uncontrollable worry has been shown to play an important role in different anxiety disorders, and it is even the defining characteristic of generalized anxiety disorder [9]. Because of the tight relationship between worry and anxiety, we believe it is indispensable to further unravel the connection between worry and memory, to ultimately gain more insight into the relationship between anxiety and memory. Research has shown that anxious persons exhibit a strong tendency to selectively process threatening stimuli. More precisely, there is strong empirical evidence for an attentional bias in anxiety: high-anxious persons and patients with an anxiety disorder automatically direct their attention toward threatening information [10]. As selective attention improves memory performance [11] one might expect anxiety to be associated with a memory bias for threatening stimuli as well. Thus, this memory bias could be a consequence of the attention bias. Alternatively, an independent mechanism might cause threatening stimuli to be selectively processed. However, in contrast to findings on attentional bias, there is no consensus on the relationship between anxiety and memory bias. Some studies show that participants with a high score on trait-anxiety have a better memory for threat-related information [12,13], but others have failed to demonstrate a connection between memory bias and trait-anxiety [14,15]. The relationship between different types of anxiety disorders and memory biases is currently also unclear [16,17]. According to Reidy and Richards [12] divergent results can be