Amir Nader, Weber Geri, Beard Courtney, Bomyea Jessica, Taylor Charles T
San Diego State University.
Department of Psychology, University of Georgia.
J Abnorm Psychol. 2008 Nov;117(4):860-868. doi: 10.1037/a0013445.
Research suggests that individuals with social anxiety show an attention bias for threat-relevant information However, few studies have directly manipulated attention to examine its effect on anxiety. In the current article, the authors tested the hypothesis that an attention modification program would be effective in reducing anxiety response and improving performance on a public-speaking challenge. Socially anxious participants completed a probe detection task by identifying letters (E or F) replacing one member of a pair of faces (neutral or disgust). The authors trained attention by including a contingency between the location of the neutral face and the probe in one group (Attention Modification Program; AMP). Participants in the AMP group showed significantly less attention bias to threat after training and lower levels of anxiety in response to a public-speaking challenge than did the participants in the Attention Control Condition (ACC) group. Moreover, blind raters judged the speeches of those in the AMP group as better than those in the ACC group. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that attention plays a causal role in the maintenance of social anxiety.
研究表明，患有社交焦虑症的个体对与威胁相关的信息存在注意力偏差。然而，很少有研究直接操纵注意力来检验其对焦虑的影响。在当前这篇文章中，作者检验了这样一个假设：注意力修正程序能够有效减少焦虑反应，并改善在公开演讲挑战中的表现。社交焦虑的参与者通过识别替换一对面孔（中性或厌恶表情）中一张面孔的字母（E或F）来完成一项探测任务。作者通过在一组中（注意力修正程序组；AMP）使中性面孔的位置与探测之间建立一种偶然性来训练注意力。与注意力控制条件（ACC）组的参与者相比，AMP组的参与者在训练后对威胁的注意力偏差显著减少，并且在应对公开演讲挑战时焦虑水平更低。此外，盲评者认为AMP组参与者的演讲比ACC组的更好。这些结果与注意力在社交焦虑维持中起因果作用的假设一致。
