The effects of a-priori expectancies on attention bias toward threatening stimuli

The role of attention bias in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders has been studied extensively over decades. Attention bias reflects maladaptation in cognitive processing, as perceived threatening stimuli receive prioritized processing even when they are task-irrelevant or factually unthreatening. Recently, there has been some interest in the role of a-priori expectancies in attention bias toward threat. The present series of studies examines the causal interaction between expectancy and attention biases, especially in spider phobia and in blood-injection phobia.

Relevant Literature:

Abado, E., Sagi, J., Silber, N., De Houwer, J., Aue, T., & Okon-Singer, H. (2020). Reducing attention bias in spider fear by manipulating expectancies. Behaviour research and therapy, 135, 103729.

Abado, E., Aue, T., & Okon-Singer, H. (2020). The missing pieces of the puzzle: a review on the interactive nature of a-priori expectancies and attention bias toward threat. Brain Sciences, 10(10), 745.

Abado, E., Richter, T., & Okon-Singer, H. (2020). Attention bias toward negative stimuli. In Cognitive Biases in Health and Psychiatric Disorders (pp. 19-40). Academic Press.

Abado, E., Aue, T., De Houwer, J., & Okon-Singer, H. (2021). Expectancy and Attention Bias in Phylogenetic Vs. Ontogenetic Stimuli. Biological Psychiatry, 89(9), S128.

Abado, E., Aue, T., & Okon-Singer, H. (2021). Cognitive biases in blood-injection-injury phobia: A review. Frontiers in psychiatry, 1158.