Publicação
Building-up new approach tendencies in individuals with high versus low fear of contamination
| Resumo: | The daily life of patients with strong fear of contamination – as a sub-type of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – is impaired by enhanced automatic avoidance tendencies. Standard treatment includes Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy, which is very effortful and results in a high rate of drop-outs. The computerized Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) might constitute an add-on therapy tool by building-up new connections between contamination-related stimuli (S) and approach reactions (R), that are less dependent on cognitive control. To avoid confounding effects by frequent comorbidities, two groups of healthy participants were pre-selected: 20 subjects with high (HG) and 21 subjects with low fear of contamination (LG) trained to approach contamination-related pictures with a joystick for 5 days in-arow. Analyses were done by fitting a Power Law Curve and applying Mixed-Effects Models. In line with the hypothesis of building-up new S-R connections, the LG mainly speeded-up the beginning of their reactions. In contrast, the HG decreased reaction times mostly after having initiated the response, but showed generally faster initiation times in the beginning, also for the control condition avoid neutral. This hints to heightened cognitive control in the HG throughout the training. In the ratings, specifically the trained pictures became less unpleasant from pre to post training. In a task version, where participants did not directly pay attention to the stimuli, an increase of approach tendencies from pre to post training was observed for the negative images in general, specifically for the LG. Groups did not change their reactions to untrained images of weak and strong content, nor did they differ in a practical test. In the long-term, detailed information on optimal settings are indispensable to establish the AAT training as a powerful add-on therapy in OCD. |
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| Autores principais: | Antunes, João Daniel Galvão |
| Assunto: | Tarefa de aproximação e evitamento Treino comportamental Perturbação obsessivo-compulsiva Mixed-effects models Psicologia experimental Teses de mestrado - 2019 |
| Ano: | 2019 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | The daily life of patients with strong fear of contamination – as a sub-type of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – is impaired by enhanced automatic avoidance tendencies. Standard treatment includes Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy, which is very effortful and results in a high rate of drop-outs. The computerized Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) might constitute an add-on therapy tool by building-up new connections between contamination-related stimuli (S) and approach reactions (R), that are less dependent on cognitive control. To avoid confounding effects by frequent comorbidities, two groups of healthy participants were pre-selected: 20 subjects with high (HG) and 21 subjects with low fear of contamination (LG) trained to approach contamination-related pictures with a joystick for 5 days in-arow. Analyses were done by fitting a Power Law Curve and applying Mixed-Effects Models. In line with the hypothesis of building-up new S-R connections, the LG mainly speeded-up the beginning of their reactions. In contrast, the HG decreased reaction times mostly after having initiated the response, but showed generally faster initiation times in the beginning, also for the control condition avoid neutral. This hints to heightened cognitive control in the HG throughout the training. In the ratings, specifically the trained pictures became less unpleasant from pre to post training. In a task version, where participants did not directly pay attention to the stimuli, an increase of approach tendencies from pre to post training was observed for the negative images in general, specifically for the LG. Groups did not change their reactions to untrained images of weak and strong content, nor did they differ in a practical test. In the long-term, detailed information on optimal settings are indispensable to establish the AAT training as a powerful add-on therapy in OCD. |
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