A meta-analysis of the effect of cognitive bias modification on anxiety and depression.

Abstract

Cognitive biases have been theorized to play a critical role in the onset and maintenance of anxiety and depression. Cognitive bias modification (CBM), an experimental paradigm that uses training to induce maladaptive or adaptive cognitive biases, was developed to test these causal models. Although CBM has generated considerable interest in the past decade, both as an experimental paradigm and as a form of treatment, there have been no quantitative reviews of the effect of CBM on anxiety and depression. This meta-analysis of 45 studies (2,591 participants) assessed the effect of CBM on cognitive biases and on anxiety and depression. CBM had a medium effect on biases (g = 0.49) that was stronger for interpretation (g = 0.81) than for attention (g = 0.29) biases. CBM further had a small effect on anxiety and depression (g = 0.13), although this effect was reliable only when symptoms were assessed after participants experienced a stressor (g = 0.23). When anxiety and depression were examined separately, CBM significantly modified anxiety but not depression. There was a nonsignificant trend toward a larger effect for studies including multiple training sessions. These findings are broadly consistent with cognitive theories of anxiety and depression that propose an interactive effect of cognitive biases and stressors on these symptoms. However, the small effect sizes observed here suggest that this effect may be more modest than previously believed.

Exploring the function of selective attention and hypervigilance for threat in anxiety

“…reduce the tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening). Hallion and Ruscio (2011) found that the interventions reliably led to reductions in attentional and interpretation biases; however, this effect was significantly smaller for ATTs (small effect size) compared with interventions that aimed to modify the interpretation bias. Furthermore, they found that the effect size for the reduction in anxiety following cognitive bias modification was small.…”

“…Despite these Running Head: ANXIETY, SELECTIVE ATTENTION AND HYPERVIGILANCE positive findings, ATTs are not effective in all individuals with anxiety (see Bar-Haim, 2010). Furthermore, a mixed pattern of results was reported in a recent meta analysis that considered the efficacy of cognitive bias modification in reducing anxiety and depression (Hallion & Ruscio, 2011). In this meta-analysis, cognitive bias modification incorporated studies utilizing ATTs to modify the attentional bias to threat or interventions that aimed to reduce interpretation biases (i.e.…”

Neurostimulation as an intervention for treatment resistant depression: From research on mechanisms towards targeted neurocognitive strategies

“…These results suggest that depressed patients might not benefit from attention training procedures to automatize attention away from negative towards positive information. A recent meta-analysis confirms that there is currently no evidence for a beneficial effect of attentional bias retaining using visual cueing paradigms (Hallion & Ruscio, 2011).…”

Evaluating web-based cognitive-affective remediation in recent trauma survivors: study rationale and protocol

“…Our overall aim was twofold: (a) improve participants’ cognitive functioning in specific, intervention-targeted, neurocognitive functions (emotional reactivity and regulation and executive functions; Dandeneau, Baldwin, Baccus, Sakellaropoulo, & Pruessner, 2007; Etkin, Egner, Peraza, Kandel, & Hirsch, 2006; Hallion & Ruscio, 2011) and (b) reducing PTSD symptoms (secondary target). We hypothesized that gains in emotional reactivity, emotional regulation, and executive functioning might secondarily ameliorate the course of early PTSD symptoms.…”