What does attention bias modification (ABM) seek to address?

Attention bias modification (ABM) focuses specifically on implicit attention biases that can contribute to anxiety symptoms. This approach is grounded in the understanding that individuals with anxiety often display a tendency to focus on threatening stimuli in their environment while neglecting neutral or positive information. By targeting these biases, ABM techniques aim to retrain an individual’s attention away from threats, thereby reducing anxiety symptoms.

The effectiveness of ABM has been supported by research indicating that when individuals learn to shift their focus away from threatening stimuli, they experience a reduction in anxiety and an improvement in emotional well-being. This intervention seeks to alter the automatic biases in attention that can exacerbate anxiety, which is distinct from the other choices that address different aspects of cognitive functioning. Choices related to visual processing impairments, auditory discrimination, and cognitive biases in decision-making do not directly pertain to the focus of ABM on anxiety-related attention biases.