Attentional Bias in Anxiety Disorders Following Cognitive Behavioral Treatment

A substantive literature suggests that anxious people have an attentional bias toward threatening stimuli. To date, however, no systematic review has examined the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety on attentional bias. A better understanding of the extant literature on CBT and its effect on attentional bias can serve to bridge the gap between experimental research on cognitive bias and the implications for clinical treatment of anxiety disorders. The present review examined studies that measured the effects of CBT on attentional bias. Of the 13 studies reviewed, 10 demonstrated that attentional bias, as assessed by dichotic listening tasks, the emotional Stroop test, or probe detection tasks, was significantly reduced from pretreatment to posttreatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder, spider phobia, social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder. Methodological issues are considered, and implications for cognitive behavioral treatments of anxiety are discussed.