The Potential Benefits of Targeted Attentional Bias Modification on Cognitive Arousal and Sleep Quality in Worry-Related Sleep Disturbance

Abstract

Attentional bias for sleep-related negative information is believed to contribute to symptoms of insomnia by elevating arousal during the presleep period. In the present study, we examined whether the delivery of an attentional bias modification (ABM) procedure in the presleep period could produce transient benefits for sleep-disturbed individuals by reducing presleep cognitive arousal and improving ease of sleep onset. In a counterbalanced repeated A-B design, participants alternated completing an ABM training task and a nontraining control task across six nights and reported on presleep cognitive arousal and sleep onset latency. Significant reductions in presleep cognitive arousal and sleep onset latency were observed on nights where the ABM task was completed relative to nights where the control task was completed. These results suggest that delivery of ABM can attenuate cognitive arousal and sleep onset latency and highlights the possibility that targeted delivery of ABM could deliver real-world benefits for sleep-disturbed individuals.

Sleep-Related Attentional Bias for Faces Depicting Tiredness in Insomnia: Evidence From an Eye-Tracking Study

“…35 Considering this, recent research has examined the efficacy of delivering attentional bias modification immediately prior to bed as a treatment for individuals displaying poor sleep quality. 36,37 These studies determined that poor sleepers provided with attentional bias modification displayed improved subjective sleep quality, reduced presleep arousal, and reduced sleep onset latency relative to poor sleeping controls. In relation to the current study, individuals with insomnia demonstrated a sleep-related attentional bias for physical facial cues pertaining to tiredness, specifically showing difficulty in disengaging attention away from such cues.…”

Attention bias towards negative emotional information and its relationship with daily worry in the context of acute stress: An eye-tracking study

“…Few studies have compared the efficacy of standard bias modification to modification completed subsequent to a relevant mood induction, though one study found the latter to be more efficacious than the former in reducing social anxiety symptoms (Kuckertz et al, 2014). Indeed, recent bias modification studies have delivered intervention sessions during critical time points in which the task stimuli are expected to be maximally salient, with promising results (Milkins, Notebaert, MacLeod, & Clarke, in press; Wald et al, in press). Further research systematically evaluating the relative efficacy of bias modification with and without manipulation of a symptom-relevant mood context is needed.…”

Attentional bias modification training for insomnia: A double-blind placebo controlled randomized trial

“…As long as no such study with adequate measurements has been reported, we think that no firm conclusions can be drawn on the role of (changing) attentional bias in insomnia complaints. Therefore, the results of the current study clearly provide no evidence for the clinical efficacy of ABM for insomnia and suggest caution in interpreting the potential applied benefits of such an intervention approach on the basis of other recent findings [29, 30]. Given the outcome of the present study, the possibility that these past results could potentially represent a Type-I error will remain until it can be shown that such effects can be replicated.…”