Biomedical subjects

Elske Salemink

Publications and source records attributed to Elske Salemink.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2026

Does future-oriented imagery rescripting increase willingness to carry out a social anxiety-related behavioral experiment? An extended replication.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Mental images of threat are common in social anxiety disorder and could impede exposure to fear-relevant situations. Landkroon et al. (2022) found that imagery rescripting of anticipated future threat, compared to no-task, increases willingness of non-clinical individuals to conduct a social anxiety-related behavioral experiment. The aim of this two-day preregistered extended replication study was to examine whether the effects persist beyond the intervention session by scheduling the behavioral experiment 1-7 days after the intervention. METHODS: On Day 1, 60 pre-screened participants were asked to design a behavioral experiment to test an idiosyncratic negative belief about a feared social situation. They were then randomly assigned to imagery rescripting (focused on their worst feared outcome of the behavioral experiment) or no-task. Participants' willingness to do the behavioral experiment and their threat beliefs was measured. On Day 2, they were asked to carry out the behavioral experiment. RESULTS: The imagery rescripting group, compared to the control group, did not show increased willingness or compliance to do the behavioral experiment on Day 1 or 2. Furthermore, the imagery rescripting did not lead to greater reductions in threat beliefs on either day. LIMITATIONS: The quality of the imagery rescripting intervention was not assessed, and given the brief nature of the intervention, any effects may have dissipated before participants decided whether to carry out the behavioral experiment. CONCLUSIONS: There was no evidence that imagery rescripting leads to changes in willingness or compliance to do a fear-relevant behavioral experiment. More research is needed to examine interventions that can enhance exposure in socially anxious people.

Humans↗

PubMed2007

Selective attention and threat: quick orienting versus slow disengagement and two versions of the dot probe task.

The dot probe task is often used to assess attentional bias in anxiety, but some aspects need clarification. First, the results, which are traditionally summarized in an attentional bias index, do not allow for distinguishing between different selective attention processes; orienting and disengagement. Second, different versions of the dot probe task have been used with unknown relative merits. Participants (N=133) completed two versions of the dot probe task: the detection task (i.e. is there a probe?) and the differentiation task (i.e. what sort of probe is it?). The analysis carried out allowed for a differentiation between orienting and disengagement. The main finding was that trait anxiety is related to disengagement difficulties and not to speed of orienting. Concerning the relative merits of the two dot probe task versions, the results suggest that the detection task may be superior to the differentiation task. Implications for past and future research are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Trained interpretive bias: validity and effects on anxiety.

Mathews and Mackintosh [(2000). Induced emotional interpretation bias and anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 602-615] developed a clever training procedure that enables the investigation of a causal relationship between interpretive bias and anxiety. The present study examined the validity of this paradigm by testing (1) the effects of interpretation training on two other tasks (homograph EAST and open-ended questionnaire) that are less closely related to the interpretation training itself as in previous studies and (2) the robustness of the training effects on state and trait anxiety. Results indicated that while the two original dependent measures (i.e., a reaction time and recognition measure) showed that the training procedure was successful in changing interpretations, the two additional measures (i.e., EAST and questionnaire) did not. This might reflect a measurement artefact, but other explanations for the findings are also possible. Moreover, evidence was found for effects of biased interpretations on anxiety. This demonstrates the viability of the present paradigm, which has implications for clinical practice.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Trained interpretive bias and anxiety.

The relationship between anxiety and interpretive bias has been studied extensively, but the causal direction of this relationship remains largely unexplored. Do negative interpretations cause anxiety or is anxiety the cause of negative interpretations? Or are the two mutually reinforcing? The present study addressed this issue by experimentally inducing either a negative or a positive interpretive bias using Mathews and Mackintosh' [(2002). Induced emotional interpretation bias and anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 604-615] training paradigm and then examining its impact on state anxiety and anxiety vulnerability. In addition, it was investigated as to whether the interpretive bias was trained implicitly. Results indicated that style of interpreting could be manipulated. That is, when confronted with ambiguous information after the training, participants (n=118) interpreted this information congruent with their (positive or negative) training condition. Data on the issue of implicitness showed that participants tended to be explicitly aware of the valence of their training stimuli. Effects of trained interpretive bias on anxiety were only marginal and absent on anxiety vulnerability. It appears that interpretive bias can be trained reliably, but its effects on mood and vulnerability require further explanation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

The effects of increasing neutral distraction on sexual responding of women with and without sexual problems.

This study examined the influence of distraction on genital and subjective sexual responses of women with (N=20) and without (N=21) sexual problems. Female-produced erotic film fragments were presented to induce sexual response and a vaginal photoplethysmograph was used to measure genital sexual responding. Subjective sexual arousal was assessed in real time using a rotating button and, retrospectively, with visual analogue scales. Distraction load was manipulated through different verbal instructions on how to deal with pairs of digits. The results revealed an equally strong impeding effect of distraction on genital sexual responses and on subjective sexual responses when these were measured retrospectively in women with and without sexual problems. However, distraction did not affect subjective sexual responses when these were measured in real time. The implications of the finding that distraction equally affects women with and without sexual problems are discussed.

Adult↗