Abstract
ABSTRACTPoor attentional control leads to attentional biases that are implicated in psychological distress. Attention Training Technique (ATT) is an auditory intervention designed to strengthen attentional control. Research indicates that ATT alleviates anxiety and depressive symptoms. This study is a randomised control trial with repeated measures that tested if a lab-based, single-exposure of ATT strengthened attentional control. Forty-six nonclinical, high anxiety/worry participants received either ATT or a sham control intervention. Attentional control was assessed using the standard and a modified version of the colour-word Stroop task. The modified version incorporated tactile interference to increase perceptual load. A series of mixed effects models, simple contrasts, and z-tests were used to evaluate if cross-modal interference worsened, and whether ATT was beneficial to, attentional control. Tactile interference increased reaction times but, when Stroop interference was controlled for, this was only true on incongruent trials. The impact of ATT was greatest under high perceptual load.
Highlights
Poor attentional control leads to attentional biases that are implicated in psychological distress
They used pre and post emotional Stroop task reaction times (RTs) to compare a single session of attentional bias modification to a sham control intervention and an effect size of 0.22
Stroop task performance significantly improved across time-points regardless of study intervention, global index (GI): t(10512) = 3.68, p < .001, d= 1.06; GI : t(10512) = 7.17, p < .001, d = 1.98; RT: t(10512) = 3.88, p < .001, d = 1.13; RT: t(10512) = 7.47, p < .001, d =1.99
Summary
Poor attentional control leads to attentional biases that are implicated in psychological distress. Attention Training Technique (ATT) is an auditory intervention designed to strengthen attentional control. This study is a randomized control trial with repeated measures that tested if a lab-based, single-exposure of ATT strengthened attentional control. Forty-six nonclinical, high anxiety/worry participants received either ATT or a sham control intervention. Attentional control was assessed using the standard and a modified version of the colourword Stroop task. The modified version incorporated tactile interference to increase perceptual load. A series of mixed effects models, simple contrasts, and z-tests were used to evaluate if cross-modal interference worsened, and whether ATT was beneficial to, attentional control. Tactile interference increased reaction times but, when Stroop interference was controlled for, this was only true on incongruent trials.
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