No change in electrocortical measures of performance monitoring in high trait anxious individuals following multi-session attention bias modification training

Abstract

Heightened attentional bias to threat and enhanced performance monitoring have been linked to higher levels of anxiety. Attentional bias modification (ABM) was developed to reduce attentional bias to threat and thus reduce anxiety. Previous studies have shown that ABM can change the activity in brain regions that are involved in cognitive control and threat detection, such as anterior cingulate cortex, which also plays a critical role in error monitoring and is the main source of the error-related negativity (ERN). While single session ABM has been shown to be effective in reducing attentional bias to threat and performance monitoring (i.e., ERN), the effect of multi-session ABM training on electrocortical measures of performance monitoring in high trait anxious individuals remains unknown. In the present study, we investigated whether multi-session ABM training would reduce the amplitude of the ERN. Individuals with high trait anxiety and attentional bias to threat were assigned in a counterbalanced order to an ABM training group (n = 26) or a control group (n = 25). Training lasted for 6 weeks with 36 training sessions delivered via cellphone. Before and after training, attentional bias was assessed with a visual dot-probe task and performance monitoring was measured with an arrow flanker task where the elicited ERN was collected. ABM training did not reduce ERN amplitudes. Bayesian analysis confirmed the null hypothesis of no changes in ERN amplitude following multi-session ABM. Therefore, our findings do not support the hypothesis that multi-session ABM training reduces performance monitoring processes in high trait anxious individuals. Our findings indicate that different methodological features of ABM training, such as the duration, location, and subject characteristics, may impact the efficacy of ABM on modulating performance monitoring. Identifying the ABM training parameters that impact performance monitoring processes should be further considered in future research.