According to cognitive theories of anxiety, phobic patients are searching the environment for thr... more According to cognitive theories of anxiety, phobic patients are searching the environment for threatening stimuli, and detecting them rapidly. However, previous studies failed to find a lowered perceptual threshold for threatening stimuli in specific phobias. Therefore, two experiments applying a signal detection paradigm were conducted. Highly spider fearful and nonfearful participants were asked to decide whether a picture of a
Selective attentional biases, often documented with a modified Stroop task, are considered to pla... more Selective attentional biases, often documented with a modified Stroop task, are considered to play an important role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety. Two competing explanations for these effects are selectivity for highly emotional words in general vs. selectivity for disorder-specific words. We tested these explanations in 32 patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), 29 patients with social phobia
Wer an einer generalisierten Angststörung, kurz GAS, leidet, der fürchtet die Zukunft. Betroffene... more Wer an einer generalisierten Angststörung, kurz GAS, leidet, der fürchtet die Zukunft. Betroffene sorgen sich ständig um kleine Dinge, wie zu spät zu kommen, um schreckliche Dinge, wie seine Kinder zu verlieren, ja sie sorgen sich darum, dass sie sich sorgen. Die GAS ist keine seltene Störung, scheint aber in der Praxis selten vorzukommen, und doch ist sie deutlich häufiger
We investigated memory impairment and mood-congruent memory bias in depression, using an explicit... more We investigated memory impairment and mood-congruent memory bias in depression, using an explicit memory test and an implicit one. Thirty-six severely depressed inpatients that fulfilled DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder and 36 healthy controls matched for sex, age, and educational level participated in the study. Explicit memory was assessed with a free recall task and implicit memory with an anagram solution task. Results showed that depressed and controls differed in explicit memory performance, depending on the amount of cognitive distraction between incidental learning and testing. Implicit memory was not affected. In addition, severely depressed patients showed a mood-congruent memory bias in implicit memory but not in explicit memory. The complex pattern of results is discussed with regard to relevant theories of depression.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2005
The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (DeHouwer, EAST; Experimental Psychol. 50 (2003) 77) was used ... more The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (DeHouwer, EAST; Experimental Psychol. 50 (2003) 77) was used to assess how different context conditions lead to differential activation of cognitive schemata in anxiety. Participants completed two identical EASTs, in which ambiguous target words (e.g., legs, net) were categorized together with pleasant words and unpleasant, fear-related words. Each EAST was preceded by the presentation of
Phenomenological features of worry such as thought content, subjective experi- ence of worry, and... more Phenomenological features of worry such as thought content, subjective experi- ence of worry, and efforts to control were investigated in the present interview study, as well as retrospective information about possible origins. To examine the clinical specificity of worrying in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), 36 GAD patients were compared to a normal control group (N = 30) and to a
According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an attentional bias towards th... more According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an attentional bias towards threat, manifested as greater distractibility by threat stimuli and enhanced detection of them. Both phenomena were studied in two experiments, using a modified visual search task, in which participants were asked to find single target words (GAD-related, speech-related, neutral, or positive) hidden in matrices made up of distractor words (also GAD-related, speech-related, neutral, or positive). Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients, social phobia (SP) patients afraid of giving speeches, and healthy controls participated in the visual search task. GAD patients were slowed by GAD-related distractor words but did not show statistically reliable evidence of enhanced detection of GAD-related target words. SP patients showed neither distraction nor enhancement effects. These results extend previous findings of attentional biases observed with other experimental paradigms.
According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an early reflexive attentional... more According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an early reflexive attentional bias toward threat stimuli, which may be followed by intentional avoidance of these stimuli. To determine the time course of attentional vigilance and avoidance, the authors conducted an eye-tracking study in which 22 highly spider fearful participants (SFs) and 23 nonanxious control participants (NACs) studied groups of
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2007
We examined attitudes towards spiders by employing an Approach-Avoidance Task, in which participa... more We examined attitudes towards spiders by employing an Approach-Avoidance Task, in which participants respond to pictures by pulling a joystick towards themselves or by pushing it away from themselves. For spider fearfuls, this stimulus–response assignment is either compatible (push spiders away) or incompatible (pull spiders closer). Specific compatibility effects were found: compared to non-anxious controls and control pictures, highly spider
Anxiety patients exhibit attentional biases toward threat, which have often been demonstrated as ... more Anxiety patients exhibit attentional biases toward threat, which have often been demonstrated as increased distractibility by threatening stimuli. In contrast, speeded detection of threat has rarely been shown. Therefore, the authors studied both phenomena in 3 versions of a visual search task while eye movements were recorded continuously. Spider-fearful individuals and nonanxious control participants participated in a target search task,
Background: Worry exposure (WE) is a core element of cognitive-behavioral treatment for generaliz... more Background: Worry exposure (WE) is a core element of cognitive-behavioral treatment for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Its efficacy as a stand-alone treatment method (without further cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions) has never been tested.We aimed to examine whether WE alone is as efficacious as the empirically supported stand-alone treatment for GAD, applied relaxation (AR). Methods: In a randomized controlled study, 73 outpatients
Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, Jan 29, 2015
Attention Bias Modification (ABM) is used to manipulate attention biases in anxiety disorders. It... more Attention Bias Modification (ABM) is used to manipulate attention biases in anxiety disorders. It has been successful in reducing attention biases and anxious symptoms in social anxiety and generalized anxiety, but not yet in specific fears and phobias. We designed a new version of the dot-probe training task, aiming to train fearful participants' attention away from or towards pictures of threatening stimuli. Moreover, we studied whether the training also affected participants' avoidance behavior and their physical arousal upon being confronted with a real threat object. In Experiment 1, students with fear of spiders were trained. We found that the attention manipulation was successful, but the training failed to affect behavior or arousal. In Experiment 2, the same procedure was used on snake-fearful students. Again, attention was trained in the expected directions. Moreover, participants whose attention had been trained away from snakes showed lower physiological arousal ...
BACKGROUND: Alcoholism is a progressive neurocognitive developmental disorder. Recent evidence sh... more BACKGROUND: Alcoholism is a progressive neurocognitive developmental disorder. Recent evidence shows that computerized training interventions (Cognitive Bias Modification, CBM) can reverse some of these maladaptively changed neurocognitive processes. A first clinical study of a CBM, called alcohol-avoidance training, found that trained alcoholic patients showed less relapse at one-year follow-up than control patients. The present study tested the replication of this result, and questions about mediation and moderation. METHODS: 509 alcohol-dependent patients received treatment as usual (primarily Cognitive Behavior Therapy) inpatient treatment. Before and after treatment, the implicit approach bias was measured with the Alcohol Approach-Avoidance Task. Half of the patients were randomly assigned to CBM, the other half received treatment as usual only. Background variables, psychopathology and executive control were tested as possible moderating variables of CBM. One year after treat...
Information processing theories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) state that intrusive imag... more Information processing theories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) state that intrusive images emerge due to a lack of integration of perceptual trauma representations in autobiographical memory. To test this hypothesis experimentally, participants were shown an aversive film to elicit intrusive images. After viewing, they received a recognition test for just one part of the film. The test contained neutrally formulated items to rehearse information from the film. Participants recorded intrusive images for the film in an intrusion diary during one week after viewing. In line with expectations, the number of intrusive images decreased only for the part o f the film for which the recognition test was given. Furthermore, cued-recall memory after one week was selectively enhanced for the film part that was in the recognition test a week before. The findings provide new evidence supporting information processing models of PTSD and have potential implications for early interventions after trauma.
International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology
Este estudio evalúa la validez y determina los puntos de corte del Inventario de Depresión de Bec... more Este estudio evalúa la validez y determina los puntos de corte del Inventario de Depresión de Beck -II (BDI-II) en Indonesia. La versión indonesia del BDI-II (BDI-II Indo) se administró a 720 personas sanas de la población general, a 215 pacientes con Enfermedad Coronaria (EC) y a 102 pacientes con depresión. El análisis factorial confirmatorio mostró similitud factorial de las tres muestras. Las correlaciones entre el Indo BDI-II y otras medidas de auto-percepción relacionadas con la depresión fueron significativas, mostrando la validez de constructo del Indo BDI-II. Además, la diferencia de puntuación del Indo BDI-II entre los participantes deprimidos y no deprimidos fue altamente significativa. La consistencia interna y la fiabilidad re-test fueron suficientemente altas. La curva ROC (receiver operating characteristic) indicó que el punto de corte de la BDI-II para el nivel de gravedad leve de depresión la población de Indonesia es igual a 17. En conclusión, el Indo BDI-II es una...
This study examined whether in an emotional Stroop task, individuals with coronary heart disease ... more This study examined whether in an emotional Stroop task, individuals with coronary heart disease (CHD) would show greater attention towards the threatening words related to their disease than healthy persons, and if such an attentional bias is associated with anxiety. An emotional Stroop task with threatening words related to CHD as well as positive, negative and neutral words was administered to 35 individuals with CHD and 35 healthy controls. Additionally, the original Stroop task, the Beck anxiety inventory and the state-trait anxiety inventory were administered. The results indicated an attentional bias towards threatening words related to CHD in the individuals with CHD. They experienced higher interference than healthy participants from threatening words related to CHD but not from positive or negative words. Moreover, the level of interference was associated with their level of anxiety, and a vicious circle may exist in this association. In addition, results indicated a possi...
We examined the diagnostic specificity of interpersonal problems (IP) in generalized anxiety diso... more We examined the diagnostic specificity of interpersonal problems (IP) in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). We expected generally higher interpersonal distress, and specifically higher levels of nonassertive, exploitable, overly nurturant, and intrusive behavior in n = 58 patients with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition GAD compared with patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (n = 46), other anxiety disorders (n = 47), and unipolar depressive disorders (n = 47). IP were assessed with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems. Specificity in the sense of heightened interpersonal distress for GAD was not supported in any of the aforementioned scales, neither for pure nor for comorbid GAD. This finding persisted after accounting for the degree of depressiveness (Beck Depression Inventory). GAD patients are rather not characterized by more self-ascribed IPs although they may worry more about interpersonal issues in general.
According to cognitive theories of anxiety, phobic patients are searching the environment for thr... more According to cognitive theories of anxiety, phobic patients are searching the environment for threatening stimuli, and detecting them rapidly. However, previous studies failed to find a lowered perceptual threshold for threatening stimuli in specific phobias. Therefore, two experiments applying a signal detection paradigm were conducted. Highly spider fearful and nonfearful participants were asked to decide whether a picture of a
Selective attentional biases, often documented with a modified Stroop task, are considered to pla... more Selective attentional biases, often documented with a modified Stroop task, are considered to play an important role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety. Two competing explanations for these effects are selectivity for highly emotional words in general vs. selectivity for disorder-specific words. We tested these explanations in 32 patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), 29 patients with social phobia
Wer an einer generalisierten Angststörung, kurz GAS, leidet, der fürchtet die Zukunft. Betroffene... more Wer an einer generalisierten Angststörung, kurz GAS, leidet, der fürchtet die Zukunft. Betroffene sorgen sich ständig um kleine Dinge, wie zu spät zu kommen, um schreckliche Dinge, wie seine Kinder zu verlieren, ja sie sorgen sich darum, dass sie sich sorgen. Die GAS ist keine seltene Störung, scheint aber in der Praxis selten vorzukommen, und doch ist sie deutlich häufiger
We investigated memory impairment and mood-congruent memory bias in depression, using an explicit... more We investigated memory impairment and mood-congruent memory bias in depression, using an explicit memory test and an implicit one. Thirty-six severely depressed inpatients that fulfilled DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder and 36 healthy controls matched for sex, age, and educational level participated in the study. Explicit memory was assessed with a free recall task and implicit memory with an anagram solution task. Results showed that depressed and controls differed in explicit memory performance, depending on the amount of cognitive distraction between incidental learning and testing. Implicit memory was not affected. In addition, severely depressed patients showed a mood-congruent memory bias in implicit memory but not in explicit memory. The complex pattern of results is discussed with regard to relevant theories of depression.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2005
The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (DeHouwer, EAST; Experimental Psychol. 50 (2003) 77) was used ... more The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (DeHouwer, EAST; Experimental Psychol. 50 (2003) 77) was used to assess how different context conditions lead to differential activation of cognitive schemata in anxiety. Participants completed two identical EASTs, in which ambiguous target words (e.g., legs, net) were categorized together with pleasant words and unpleasant, fear-related words. Each EAST was preceded by the presentation of
Phenomenological features of worry such as thought content, subjective experi- ence of worry, and... more Phenomenological features of worry such as thought content, subjective experi- ence of worry, and efforts to control were investigated in the present interview study, as well as retrospective information about possible origins. To examine the clinical specificity of worrying in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), 36 GAD patients were compared to a normal control group (N = 30) and to a
According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an attentional bias towards th... more According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an attentional bias towards threat, manifested as greater distractibility by threat stimuli and enhanced detection of them. Both phenomena were studied in two experiments, using a modified visual search task, in which participants were asked to find single target words (GAD-related, speech-related, neutral, or positive) hidden in matrices made up of distractor words (also GAD-related, speech-related, neutral, or positive). Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients, social phobia (SP) patients afraid of giving speeches, and healthy controls participated in the visual search task. GAD patients were slowed by GAD-related distractor words but did not show statistically reliable evidence of enhanced detection of GAD-related target words. SP patients showed neither distraction nor enhancement effects. These results extend previous findings of attentional biases observed with other experimental paradigms.
According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an early reflexive attentional... more According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an early reflexive attentional bias toward threat stimuli, which may be followed by intentional avoidance of these stimuli. To determine the time course of attentional vigilance and avoidance, the authors conducted an eye-tracking study in which 22 highly spider fearful participants (SFs) and 23 nonanxious control participants (NACs) studied groups of
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2007
We examined attitudes towards spiders by employing an Approach-Avoidance Task, in which participa... more We examined attitudes towards spiders by employing an Approach-Avoidance Task, in which participants respond to pictures by pulling a joystick towards themselves or by pushing it away from themselves. For spider fearfuls, this stimulus–response assignment is either compatible (push spiders away) or incompatible (pull spiders closer). Specific compatibility effects were found: compared to non-anxious controls and control pictures, highly spider
Anxiety patients exhibit attentional biases toward threat, which have often been demonstrated as ... more Anxiety patients exhibit attentional biases toward threat, which have often been demonstrated as increased distractibility by threatening stimuli. In contrast, speeded detection of threat has rarely been shown. Therefore, the authors studied both phenomena in 3 versions of a visual search task while eye movements were recorded continuously. Spider-fearful individuals and nonanxious control participants participated in a target search task,
Background: Worry exposure (WE) is a core element of cognitive-behavioral treatment for generaliz... more Background: Worry exposure (WE) is a core element of cognitive-behavioral treatment for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Its efficacy as a stand-alone treatment method (without further cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions) has never been tested.We aimed to examine whether WE alone is as efficacious as the empirically supported stand-alone treatment for GAD, applied relaxation (AR). Methods: In a randomized controlled study, 73 outpatients
Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, Jan 29, 2015
Attention Bias Modification (ABM) is used to manipulate attention biases in anxiety disorders. It... more Attention Bias Modification (ABM) is used to manipulate attention biases in anxiety disorders. It has been successful in reducing attention biases and anxious symptoms in social anxiety and generalized anxiety, but not yet in specific fears and phobias. We designed a new version of the dot-probe training task, aiming to train fearful participants' attention away from or towards pictures of threatening stimuli. Moreover, we studied whether the training also affected participants' avoidance behavior and their physical arousal upon being confronted with a real threat object. In Experiment 1, students with fear of spiders were trained. We found that the attention manipulation was successful, but the training failed to affect behavior or arousal. In Experiment 2, the same procedure was used on snake-fearful students. Again, attention was trained in the expected directions. Moreover, participants whose attention had been trained away from snakes showed lower physiological arousal ...
BACKGROUND: Alcoholism is a progressive neurocognitive developmental disorder. Recent evidence sh... more BACKGROUND: Alcoholism is a progressive neurocognitive developmental disorder. Recent evidence shows that computerized training interventions (Cognitive Bias Modification, CBM) can reverse some of these maladaptively changed neurocognitive processes. A first clinical study of a CBM, called alcohol-avoidance training, found that trained alcoholic patients showed less relapse at one-year follow-up than control patients. The present study tested the replication of this result, and questions about mediation and moderation. METHODS: 509 alcohol-dependent patients received treatment as usual (primarily Cognitive Behavior Therapy) inpatient treatment. Before and after treatment, the implicit approach bias was measured with the Alcohol Approach-Avoidance Task. Half of the patients were randomly assigned to CBM, the other half received treatment as usual only. Background variables, psychopathology and executive control were tested as possible moderating variables of CBM. One year after treat...
Information processing theories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) state that intrusive imag... more Information processing theories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) state that intrusive images emerge due to a lack of integration of perceptual trauma representations in autobiographical memory. To test this hypothesis experimentally, participants were shown an aversive film to elicit intrusive images. After viewing, they received a recognition test for just one part of the film. The test contained neutrally formulated items to rehearse information from the film. Participants recorded intrusive images for the film in an intrusion diary during one week after viewing. In line with expectations, the number of intrusive images decreased only for the part o f the film for which the recognition test was given. Furthermore, cued-recall memory after one week was selectively enhanced for the film part that was in the recognition test a week before. The findings provide new evidence supporting information processing models of PTSD and have potential implications for early interventions after trauma.
International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology
Este estudio evalúa la validez y determina los puntos de corte del Inventario de Depresión de Bec... more Este estudio evalúa la validez y determina los puntos de corte del Inventario de Depresión de Beck -II (BDI-II) en Indonesia. La versión indonesia del BDI-II (BDI-II Indo) se administró a 720 personas sanas de la población general, a 215 pacientes con Enfermedad Coronaria (EC) y a 102 pacientes con depresión. El análisis factorial confirmatorio mostró similitud factorial de las tres muestras. Las correlaciones entre el Indo BDI-II y otras medidas de auto-percepción relacionadas con la depresión fueron significativas, mostrando la validez de constructo del Indo BDI-II. Además, la diferencia de puntuación del Indo BDI-II entre los participantes deprimidos y no deprimidos fue altamente significativa. La consistencia interna y la fiabilidad re-test fueron suficientemente altas. La curva ROC (receiver operating characteristic) indicó que el punto de corte de la BDI-II para el nivel de gravedad leve de depresión la población de Indonesia es igual a 17. En conclusión, el Indo BDI-II es una...
This study examined whether in an emotional Stroop task, individuals with coronary heart disease ... more This study examined whether in an emotional Stroop task, individuals with coronary heart disease (CHD) would show greater attention towards the threatening words related to their disease than healthy persons, and if such an attentional bias is associated with anxiety. An emotional Stroop task with threatening words related to CHD as well as positive, negative and neutral words was administered to 35 individuals with CHD and 35 healthy controls. Additionally, the original Stroop task, the Beck anxiety inventory and the state-trait anxiety inventory were administered. The results indicated an attentional bias towards threatening words related to CHD in the individuals with CHD. They experienced higher interference than healthy participants from threatening words related to CHD but not from positive or negative words. Moreover, the level of interference was associated with their level of anxiety, and a vicious circle may exist in this association. In addition, results indicated a possi...
We examined the diagnostic specificity of interpersonal problems (IP) in generalized anxiety diso... more We examined the diagnostic specificity of interpersonal problems (IP) in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). We expected generally higher interpersonal distress, and specifically higher levels of nonassertive, exploitable, overly nurturant, and intrusive behavior in n = 58 patients with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition GAD compared with patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (n = 46), other anxiety disorders (n = 47), and unipolar depressive disorders (n = 47). IP were assessed with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems. Specificity in the sense of heightened interpersonal distress for GAD was not supported in any of the aforementioned scales, neither for pure nor for comorbid GAD. This finding persisted after accounting for the degree of depressiveness (Beck Depression Inventory). GAD patients are rather not characterized by more self-ascribed IPs although they may worry more about interpersonal issues in general.
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Papers by Eni Becker