7: The Role of Mechanisms Flashcards
What are mechanisms?
Factors that are responsible for attentional bias.
What 3 things does understanding mechanisms help with?
Understanding emotional disorders, revealing why a bias is shown and finding targets for treatment.
What are the three steps in identifying mechanisms?
Looking at convergence of bias across paradigms, testing and refining frameworks and moving form single mediators to interaction of factors.
Give 5 types of mechanism.
Neural, cognitive, personality, strategic and automatic.
Which process is automatic?
Threat detection.
Which process is strategic?
Threat avoidance.
Which process is automatic and strategic?
Attentional disengagement.
What factor mediates threat detection?
Facilitated attention.
What factor mediates attentional control?
Difficulty in disengagement.
What factor mediates emotional regulation goals?
Attentional avoidance.
Which mechanism is the most robust in anxiety?
Threat detection.
How is neutral material judged by high anxiety individuals compared to low anxiety individuals?
Higher subjective threat value.
What are the conditions for a labile threat bias in anxiety?
Low threat-safety discrimination and low cognitive control.
What are the conditions for a vigilant threat bias in anxiety?
High threat-safety discrimination and low cognitive control.
What are the conditions for an avoidant threat bias in anxiety?
High threat-safety discrimination and high cognitive control.
What are the conditions for no detectable threat bias in anxiety?
Low threat-safety discrimination and high cognitive control.
Which mechanism is key for anxiety?
Threat appraisal.
Which mechanism is key for depression?
Goal engagement.
What does revealing differences in mechanisms behind anxiety and depression have implications for?
Diagnosis and treatment.
When do attentional biases occur in depression?
For self-relevant material at long durations which allow for elaboration.
When do attentional biases occur in anxiety?
For a wide range of emotional cues, even automatically at the pre-attentive stage.
Which type of anxiety more often shows a bias towards threat?
Distress-related disorders (e.g. GAD).
Which type of anxiety more often shows a bias away from threat?
Fear-related pathology.
What evidence supports the idea that sub-types of anxiety have different directional biases?
Disorder predicts bias and direction of bias predicts treatment outcomes.
How does low attentional control affect threat bias?
The reduced influence of the executive, goal directed system means there is no buffer against prolonged engagement with threat.
How does high attentional control affect threat bias?
Trying to avoid anxiety means some material is suppressed.
