The Application of Attentional Bias Modification in Spider-fearful Individuals And The Discussion of Time Course Effect

• Main Authors: Yi-Chen Chu, 朱怡蓁
• Other Authors: Min-Hung Teng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95911828653067499732

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 臨床心理學研究所 === 102 === According to the review, individuals with specific phobia may possess the symptom of “vigilance – avoidance ” in the attentional bias process. And the cause of this bias may produce or maintain the symptoms of specific phobia. Through the attentional bias modification (ABM) procedure, MacLeod and Mathews (2002) discovered that ABM may reduce the extent of attentional bias toward the threat and diminish their anxiety during stress task. Recently, though ABM is viewed as an effective technology for clinical treatment, its’ mechanism hasn’t been investigated clearly and it hasn’t taken the specificity of attentional bias in different anxiety disorders into consideration. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of ABM in different presentation times. In the present study, we randomly assigns 31 spider-fearful individuals and 31 normal individuals to receive short (100 ms), medium (500 ms), and long (980 ms) ABM exposure times (using pictures of spiders and neutral animals as stimuli) respectively. The changes of the three attentional bias index, the subjective fear of spider, and the avoidance behavior of two groups before and after the ABM are investigated. The result shows that individual’s attentional bias can be trained successfully. Before receiving ABM, no matter what individuals attentional bias patterm is, they would show avoidant bias after ABM. Moreover, in the engagement index, the longer ABM’s exposure times which individuals receive, the more obvious avoidant bias individuals show. And after receiving ABM, the longer stimulus present in the dot probe task, the more obvious avoidant bias individuals show. Nevertheless, the study reveals individual’s increase subjective fear of spider and the tendency of avoidance behavior are also increased. The difference is that the low spider-fearful individuals who receive short exposure time of ABM, their subjective fear of spider and the avoidance behavior are reduced. According to the results, we will try to investigate the specificity of attentional bias and ABM’s mechanism. In addition, we also want to explore the possibility of clinical application in the future.