Division of Psychiatry, Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Postboks 23 Vinderen, 0319, Oslo, Norway.
Department of Behavioural Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway.
Sci Rep. 2024 Oct 9;14(1):23628. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-74855-x.
Negative attentional bias and alterations in positive affect dynamics constitute emotional vulnerability to depression. Attentional bias modification (ABM) aims to reduce emotional vulnerability to depression by fostering attentional deployment towards positive stimuli. In this randomized controlled trial, we examined whether ABM leads to changes in positive affect dynamics in a sample with an emotional vulnerability to depression (N = 65). Affect dynamics were measured based on experience sampling data gathered 14 days before and after ABM. During ABM, participants paid attention to pairs of emotional faces and responded to dots that were appearing in their place. There was an 87% chance for the dots to appear in place of the relatively more positive face, with the purpose to implicitly foster attentional focus on positive stimuli. In the control condition, there was a 50% chance of the dots to appear in place of the positive stimuli. Results showed that the lag-1 autocorrelation of affect ("inertia") increased within the ABM group and decreased in the control group, but the findings were not robust and it was unclear whether ABM was the cause. There were no changes in the other affect dynamics indices. Improvements in depression during ABM were not associated with changes in affect dynamics, and affect dynamics post ABM did not predict depression symptoms six months later. In conclusion, the study showed no clear effect of ABM on affect dynamics.
负性注意偏向和正性情绪动态改变构成了抑郁的情绪易感性。注意偏向矫正（ABM）旨在通过促进对正性刺激的注意投入来降低抑郁的情绪易感性。在这项随机对照试验中，我们在具有抑郁情绪易感性的样本中（N=65），考察了 ABM 是否会导致正性情绪动态的改变。情绪动态是根据 ABM 前 14 天和后 14 天的经验采样数据测量的。在 ABM 期间，参与者关注一对情绪面孔，并对出现在其位置的点做出反应。点出现在相对更积极的面孔位置的概率为 87%，目的是隐性地促进对正性刺激的注意焦点。在对照组中，点出现在正性刺激位置的概率为 50%。结果表明，ABM 组的情绪滞后 1 自相关（“惯性”）增加，而对照组则减少，但结果不稳健，不清楚 ABM 是否是原因。其他情绪动态指标没有变化。ABM 期间抑郁的改善与情绪动态的变化无关，ABM 后情绪动态也不能预测六个月后的抑郁症状。总之，该研究表明 ABM 对情绪动态没有明显影响。
