Attention Training Toward and Away from Threat in Social Phobia: Effects on Subjective, Behavioral, and Physiological Measures of Anxiety

Abstract

Social Phobics exhibit an attentional bias for threat in probe detection and probe discrimination paradigms. Attention training programs, whereby probes always replace nonthreat cues, reduce attentional bias for threat and self-reported anxiety. However, it remains unclear whether the therapeutic benefits of attention training result from people learning to disengage attention from threat cues or acquiring greater control over their attention by learning to deploy it flexibly. Moreover, researchers have seldom taken behavioral measures, and have never taken physiological measures of fear reduction. Investigating these questions, we found that training to disengage attention from threat is more effective than training to deploy it flexibly in social phobia. Indeed, the former condition reduced self-report, behavioral and physiological measures of anxiety.