The Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (OCI) is a new self-report instrument developed to address the problems inherent in available instruments for determining the diagnosis and severity of obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD). The OCI consists of 42 items composing 7 subscales: Washing, Checking, Doubting, Ordering, Obsessing (i.e., having obsessional thoughts). Hoarding, and Mental Neutralizing. Each item is rated on a 5-point (0-4) Likert scale of symptom frequency and associated distress. One hundred and forty-seven individuals diagnosed with OCD; 58 with generalized social phobia; 44 with posttraumatic stress disorder; and 194 nonpatients completed the OCI and other measures of OCD, anxiety, and depression. The present article describes the psychometrics of the OCI including (a) scale construction and content validity, (b) reliability (internal consistency and retest reliability), and (c) convergent and discriminant validity. The OCI exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity with all 4 samples. Several instruments have been developed to measure the content and severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. These measures vary in both focus and format. In this article, we examine the available instruments, introduce a new instrument, the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (OCI), and describe the OCI's psychometric properties. 1 The OCI was developed to address various limitations of the available instruments. One of the most commonly used assessments for measuring the severity of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in research studies is the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS; Goodman et al., 1989). The Y-BOCS severity score is derived from 10 items, each rated on a 5-point scale where 0 denotes negligible symptoms and 4, extreme symptoms. Five items measure severity of obsessions and 5, severity of compulsions. The items address time spent on obsessions or compulsions, resistance, interference, distress, and control. The scale yields three severity scores: obsessions, compulsions, and their sum.

Research suggests that individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) show an attention bias for threat-relevant information. However, few studies have examined the causal role of attention bias in the maintenance of anxiety and whether modification of such biases may reduce pathological anxiety symptoms. In the current paper, we tested the hypothesis that an eight-session attention modification program would (a) decrease attention bias to threat and (b) reduce symptoms of GAD. Participants completed a probe detection task by identifying letters ("E" or "F") replacing one member of a pair of words. We trained attention by including a contingency between the location of the probe and the non-threat word in one group (Attention Modification program, AMP) and not in the other (Attention Control condition, ACC). Participants in the AMP showed change in attention bias and a decrease in anxiety, as indicated by both self report and interviewer measures. These effects were not present in the ACC group. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that attention plays a causal role in the maintenance of GAD and suggest that altering attention mechanisms may effectively reduce anxiety.Researchers have used a wide range of methods borrowed from cognitive psychology to examine attention bias to threat in individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD; Mathews & MacLeod, 1985MacLeod, Mathews, & Tata, 1986;Mogg, Millar, & Bradley, 2000). Research using these methods has consistently produced evidence that patients with GAD preferentially attend to threat relevant stimuli over neutral stimuli when the two compete for processing priority.In a seminal study, MacLeod, Mathews, and Tata (1986) developed the probe detection paradigm to measure attention bias to threat in GAD. In this paradigm, participants see two words, one above the other, on a computer screen. One word is neutral (e.g., table), and the other word has a threatening meaning (e.g., disease). Participants are asked to read the upper word and ignore the lower word. On critical trials (25%), either the upper or the lower word is replaced with a dot probe (·) and participants are asked to signal the presence of the probe by pressing a button. MacLeod et al. (1986) found that individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder detect probes that replace threat words, either in the upper or the lower portion of the screen, faster than probes that replace neutral words. Thus, clinically anxious individuals with GAD consistently showed an attention bias toward threat. On the other hand, non-anxious controls tended to demonstrate an attention bias away from threat in this paradigm. In a later replication of this study, MacLeod and Mathews (1988) threat stimuli from the mean response latency for trials where the probe replaced the neutral stimuli, such that larger numbers revealed greater bias for threat. Using this index, these authors again found that individuals with GAD show an attention bias toward threat.Two recent reviews of attention bias in anxiety ...

We conducted a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial to examine the efficacy of an attention training procedure in reducing symptoms of social anxiety in forty-four individuals diagnosed with Generalized Social Phobia (GSP). Attention training comprised a probe detection task where pictures of faces with either a threatening or neutral emotional expression cued different locations on the computer screen. In the Attention Modification Program (AMP), participants responded to a probe that always followed neutral faces when paired with a threatening face, thereby directing attention away from threat. In the Attention Control Condition (ACC), the probe appeared with equal frequency in the position of the threat and neutral faces. Results revealed that the AMP facilitated attention disengagement from threat from pre- to post-assessment, and reduced clinician- and self-reported symptoms of social anxiety relative to the ACC. Participants no longer meeting DSM-IV criteria for GSP at post-assessment were 50% in the AMP and 14% in the ACC. Symptom reduction in the AMP group was maintained during four-month follow-up assessment. These results suggest that computerized attention training procedures may be beneficial for treating social phobia.

Research suggests that individuals with social anxiety show an attention bias for threat-relevant information However, few studies have directly manipulated attention to examine its effect on anxiety. In the current article, the authors tested the hypothesis that an attention modification program would be effective in reducing anxiety response and improving performance on a public-speaking challenge. Socially anxious participants completed a probe detection task by identifying letters (E or F) replacing one member of a pair of faces (neutral or disgust). The authors trained attention by including a contingency between the location of the neutral face and the probe in one group (Attention Modification Program; AMP). Participants in the AMP group showed significantly less attention bias to threat after training and lower levels of anxiety in response to a public-speaking challenge than did the participants in the Attention Control Condition (ACC) group. Moreover, blind raters judged the speeches of those in the AMP group as better than those in the ACC group. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that attention plays a causal role in the maintenance of social anxiety.

The dot-probe task has been widely used in research to produce an index of biased attention based on reaction times (RTs). Despite its popularity, very few published studies have examined psychometric properties of the task, including test-retest reliability, and no previous study has examined reliability in clinically anxious samples or systematically explored the effects of task design and analysis decisions on reliability. In the current analysis, we used dot-probe data from 3 studies in which attention bias toward threat-related faces was assessed at multiple (Ն5) time-points. Two of the studies were similar (adults with social anxiety disorder, similar design features) whereas 1 was more disparate (pediatric healthy volunteers, distinct task design). We explored the effects of analysis choices (e.g., bias score formula, outlier handling method) on reliability and searched for convergent findings across the 3 studies. We found that, when concurrently considering the 3 studies, the most reliable RT index of bias used data from dot-bottom trials, comparing congruent to incongruent trials, with rescaled outliers, particularly after averaging across more than 1 assessment point. Although reliability of RT bias indices was moderate to low, within-session variability in bias (attention bias variability; ABV), a recently proposed RT index, was more reliable across sessions. Several eyetracking-based indices of attention bias (available in the pediatric healthy sample only) showed reliability that matched the optimal RT index (ABV). On the basis of these findings, we make specific recommendations to researchers using the dot-probe, particularly those wishing to investigate individual differences and/or single-patient applications.

Previous research suggests that socially anxious individuals interpret ambiguous social information in a more threatening manner compared to non-anxious individuals. Recently, studies have experimentally modified interpretation and shown that this subsequently affected anxiety in non-anxious individuals. If similar procedures can modify interpretation biases in socially anxious individuals, they may lead to a reduction in social anxiety symptoms. In the current study, we examined the effect of a computerized Interpretation Modification Program (IMP) on interpretation bias and social anxiety symptoms. Twenty-seven socially anxious individuals were randomly assigned to the IMP or a control condition. Participants completed eight computer sessions over four weeks. The IMP modified interpretation by providing positive feedback when participants made benign interpretations and negative feedback in response to threat interpretations. The IMP successfully decreased threat interpretations, increased benign interpretations, and decreased social anxiety symptoms compared to the control condition. Moreover, changes in benign interpretation mediated IMP's effect on social anxiety. This initial trial suggests that interpretation modification may have clinical utility when applied as a multisession intervention.

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T h e p r esen t stu dy exa m in es th e at t en t io n al b ia s hyp o t h esis fo r in d ivid u a ls wit h gen er a lised so cia l ph o b ia (G SP s). So cia lly p h o b ic in divid u a ls were hyp o t h esised t o exh ib it at t en t io n a l b ias t owa rd s t h reat stim uli r eleva n t t o in t er p er so n a l sit u at io n s. T h is hyp o t h esis wa s t est ed u sin g th e fa ce-in -th ecro wd p a r ad igm . G SP s a n d n o n a n xio u s co n t ro ls (N AC s) d et ected a n a ngr y, h ap p y, n eu t r a l, o r d isgu st t a rget fa ce in a crowd o f 12 d ist ra ct er p h o t ogr ap h s. R esu lts in d ica t ed th at , co m p a red t o N A C s, G SP s exh ib ited great er at t en t io n a l b ia ses fo r a n gr y t h a n fo r ha p py fa ces in a n eu t r a l cro wd . G SP s were m o r e slo wed d o wn in th eir p erfo r m a n ce by ha p py a n d a ngr y ver su s n eu t ra l d ist r a cter s; N A C s d id n o t exh ib it su ch sen sit ivit y t o d ist r act er type. F in a lly, G SP s wer e fa ster in d et ectin g a n ger th a n d isgu st exp r essio n s; N AC s d et ect ed b o th t yp es o f fa ces eq u a lly q u ick ly. I m p licat io n s o f t h ese ® n d in gs fo r t h e m a in t en a n ce o f so cia l p h o b ia a r e d iscu ssed .