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Evidence supports a causal role of insomnia in the development and maintenance of depression, yet mechanisms underlying this association in young people are not well established. Attention biases have been implicated separately in the sleep and depression fields and represents an important candidate mechanism. Poor sleep may lead to a negative attention bias (characteristic of depression) by impacting attentional control. This study assessed the hypothesis that attentional control and negative attention bias would sequentially mediate the relationship between insomnia and depressive symptoms in an unselected sample of young people (17–24 years). Concerns have been raised regarding the psychometric properties of tasks used to measure attention bias, and a Dual-Probe Task is emerging as a more reliable measure. Participants (N = 275, Male = 59, M age = 19.40) completed the Dual-Probe Task, a behavioural measure of attentional control, and self-report measures of insomnia and depression. Participants completed a one-week sleep diary. Results were consistent with negative attention bias, but not attentional control, as a mechanism which partially accounts for the relationship between sleep (i.e., insomnia severity, sleep duration, sleep efficiency, sleep latency) and depression. This study highlights sleep and negative attention bias as potentially modifiable risk factors to reduce depressive symptoms in young people. • Insomnia and depression relate to negative attention bias, but not attentional control. • Negative attention bias explains the association between insomnia and depression. • Negative attention bias is a transdiagnostic mechanism. • Interventions for depression may target negative attention bias and sleep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Procedures that effectively modify attentional bias to negative information have been examined for their potential to be a source of therapeutic change in emotional vulnerability. However, the degree to which these procedures modify attentional bias is subject to individual differences. This generates the need to understand the mechanisms that influence attentional bias change across individuals. The present study investigated the association between individual differences in attentional control and individual differences in the magnitude of bias change evoked by an attentional bias modification procedure. The findings demonstrate that individual differences in two facets of attentional control, control of attentional inhibition and control of attentional selectivity, were positively associated with individual differences in the magnitude of attentional bias change. The present findings inform upon the cognitive mechanisms underpinning change in attentional bias, and identify a target cognitive process for research seeking to enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of attentional bias modification procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive models of insomnia consistently suggest that negative expectations regarding the consequences of poor sleep contribute to the maintenance of insomnia. To date, however, no research has sought to determine whether insomnia is indeed characterised by such a negative sleep-related expectancy bias, using objective cognitive assessment tasks which are more immune to response biases than questionnaire assessments. Therefore, the current study employed a reaction-time task assessing biased expectations among a group with clinically significant insomnia symptoms (n = 30) and a low insomnia symptoms group (n = 40). The task involved the presentation of scenarios describing the consequences of poor sleep, and non-sleep related activities, which could be resolved in a benign or a negative manner. The results demonstrated that the high insomnia symptoms group were disproportionately fast to resolve sleep-related scenarios in line with negative outcomes, as compared to benign outcomes, relative to the low insomnia symptoms group. The two groups did not differ in their pattern of resolving non-sleep related scenarios. This pattern of findings is entirely consistent with a sleep-specific expectancy bias operating in individuals with clinically significant insomnia symptoms, and highlights the potential of cognitive-experimental assessment tasks to objectively index patterns of biased cognition in insomnia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attentional bias modification (ABM) is a promising therapeutic tool aimed at changing patterns of attentional selectivity associated with heightened anxiety. A number of studies have successfully implemented ABM using the modified dot-probe task. However others have not achieved the attentional change required to achieve emotional benefits, highlighting the need for new ABM methods. The current study compared the effectiveness of a newly developed ABM task against the traditional dot-probe ABM task. The new person-identity-matching (PIM) task presented participants with virtual cards, each depicting a happy and angry person. The task encourages selective attention toward or away from threat by requiring participants to make matching judgements between two cards, based either on the identities of the happy faces, or of the angry faces. Change in attentional bias achieved by both ABM tasks was measured by a dot-probe assessment task. Their impact on emotional vulnerability was assessed by measuring negative emotional reactions to a video stressor. The PIM task succeeded in modifying attentional bias, and exerting an impact on emotional reactivity, whereas this was not the case for the dot-probe task. These results are considered in relation to the potential clinical utility of the current task in comparison to traditional ABM methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Attentional bias to threat is well established, however, the influence of spatial predictability on this attentional bias has never been investigated. Here we investigated how threat affects attentional capture and disengagement when its spatial location is predictable. Using a visual search paradigm, participants were required to identify a target inside one of a variable number of colored circles. One color (Conditioned Stimulus, CS+) was fear-conditioned using an electrocutaneous stimulus at tolerance level. In the experimental group the CS+ was made spatially predictable (occurred more often at one location in the visual display), while this was not the case in the control group. Results showed no complete automatic capture of attention by the CS+, but the experimental group did show more prioritization of the CS+ and less difficulty to disengage from the CS+ than the control group. Of further importance was the finding that the experimental group also attended to the location that was predictive of the CS+, even when no CS+ was presented. Findings are discussed in terms the effects of predictability on anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to determine the causal role of insomnia-consistent interpretation bias within the cognitive model of insomnia, by modifying this bias in students experiencing subclinical levels of insomnia and assessing subsequent effects on sleep parameters. A sample of 128 students underwent randomization to receive either a single session of online Cognitive Bias Modification-Interpretation (CBM-I) or a sham training. Participants then tracked their pre-sleep worry and sleep parameters for seven consecutive days. Interpretation bias was assessed using an encoding-recognition task specifically designed for insomnia-related interpretation bias. The CBM-I manipulation utilized ambiguous scenarios to redirect participants away from making insomnia-related interpretations. Results revealed that CBM-I effectively decreased insomnia-consistent interpretation bias compared to the sham treatment, with interpretation bias being absent post-training in the CBM-I group. This reduction did not lead to improvements in pre-sleep worry or any sleep parameters. This study has been the first to investigate the causal role of interpretation bias on symptoms of insomnia. Although results indicated this bias to be modifiable, its causality within the cognitive model proves to be more complicated. Future research focusing on optimization of cognitive bias modifications could shed more light on the effects of biased cognitions on insomnia symptoms. • Insomnia-consistent interpretation bias is modifiable in students with subclinical insomnia. • A single-session of online CBM-I outperformed a sham training in bias modification. • Modification of interpretation bias did not significantly improve sleep parameters. • More research is needed to determine causality of interpretation bias in insomnia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst people with high contamination fear may not experience a greater number of contamination-related intrusions than people with low contamination fear, they tend to experience heightened distress in response to such intrusions. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that attentional bias to contamination-relevant information, and the variability of this attentional bias, moderates the degree to which high contamination fearful but not low contamination fearful individuals experience distress in response to contamination-related intrusions. Individuals with high (n = 31) or low (n = 44) contamination fear completed a lab-based session including questionnaires, a dot-probe measure of contamination-related attentional bias and attentional bias variability, and a contamination stressor video. Participants then completed a week-long contamination intrusions diary. There were significant differences in intrusion distress between those with low and high contamination fear in the anticipated direction, and attentional bias significantly moderated this relationship. Regardless of contamination fear level, greater attentional bias variability was associated with greater intrusion distress. These findings suggest that reducing attentional bias variability could potentially help to reduce distress elicited by contamination-related intrusions, while also highlighting the fact that attentional bias towards threat may protect against such distress in low contamination fearful individuals. • Degree of contamination fear is associated with distress following intrusions. • With low contamination fear, attentional avoidance is linked to increased distress. • With high contamination fear, distress is high regardless of attentional bias. • Attentional bias variability is associated with distress but not contamination fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a dramatic increase in the salience and importance of information relating to both the risk of infection, and factors that could mitigate against such risk. This is likely to have contributed to elevated contamination fear concerns in the general population. Biased attention for contamination-related information has been proposed as a potential mechanism underlying contamination fear, though evidence regarding the presence of such biased attention has been inconsistent. A possible reason for this is that contamination fear may be characterised by variability in attention bias that has not yet been examined. The current study examined the potential association between attention bias variability for both contamination-related and mitigation-related stimuli, and contamination fear during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. A final sample of 315 participants completed measures of attention bias and contamination fear. The measure of average attention bias for contamination-related stimuli and mitigation-related stimuli was not associated with contamination fear (r = 0.055 and r = 0.051, p > 0.10), though both attention bias variability measures did show a small but statistically significant relationship with contamination fear (r = 0.133, p < 0.05; r = 0.147, p < 0.01). These attention bias variability measures also accounted for significant additional variance in contamination fear above the average attention bias measure (and controlling for response time variability). These findings provide initial evidence for the association between attention bias variability and contamination fear, underscoring a potential target for cognitive bias interventions for clinical contamination fear. • The COVID-19 pandemic provided conditions conducive to heightened contamination fear. • Attention bias variability for contamination and mitigation information were assessed. • Both measure of attention bias variability were associated with contamination fear. • Standard average attention bias to threat did not predict contamination fear. • Attention bias variability may contribute to heightened contamination fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rumination is a maladaptive form of repetitive thinking that enhances stress responses, and heightened disposition to engage in rumination may contribute to the onset and persistence of stress-related symptoms. However, the cognitive mechanisms through which ruminative disposition influences stress reactivity are not yet fully understood. This study investigated the hypothesis that the impact of ruminative disposition on stress reactivity is carried by an attentional bias reflecting impaired attentional disengagement from negative information. We examined the capacity of a measure of ruminative disposition to predict both attentional biases to negative exam-related information, and state anxiety, in students approaching a mid-term exam. As expected, ruminative disposition predicted state anxiety, over and above the level predicted by trait anxiety. Ruminative disposition also predicted biased attentional disengagement from, but not biased attentional engagement with, negative information. Importantly, biased attentional disengagement from negative information mediated the relation between ruminative disposition and state anxiety. These findings confirm that dispositional rumination is associated with difficulty disengaging attention from negative information, and suggest that this attentional bias may be one of the mechanisms through which ruminative disposition influences stress reactivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the underlying role of attention control and response time variability in explaining the relationship between anxiety and two commonly computed measures of attention bias variability: 'moving average' and 'trial-level bias score' measures. Participants (final n = 195) completed measures of anxiety symptomatology, antisaccade performance (attention control), a stand-alone measure of response-time variability, and a probe task measure of attention bias. Average bias and moving average bias variability measures both recorded significant, but low split-half reliability. Both attention bias variability measures and average attention bias were associated with anxiety, and attention control. Both attention bias variability measures correlated with response time variability. Neither attention bias variability measure correlated with average attention bias. Attention control was the single significant mediator of the relationship between anxiety and the trial-level bias score measure of attention bias variability. Neither response time variability nor attention control significantly mediated the relationship between anxiety and the moving average measure of attention bias variability. No evidence was found for the mediating role of response time variability. The present findings suggest that the relationships observed between anxiety and the trial-level bias score measure of attention bias variability in particular may be attributable to the over-arching role of attention control. • Attention bias variability may be underpinned by other cognitive processes. • Study examined potential roles of response time variability and attention control. • Measures of attention bias variability predicted anxiety symptoms. • Attention control mediated this relationship for one bias variability measure. • There was no evidence for the mediating role of response time variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]