ArticleFrontiers in human neuroscience2019
Learning to Look at the Bright Side of Life: Attention Bias Modification Training Enhances Optimism Bias.
Article in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Unveiling the neural underpinnings of optimism: a systematic review.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- A look at the free-viewing paradigm in eye-tracking research to assess positive attentional bias.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- From perception to projection: Exploring neuroaffective advances in understanding optimism bias and belief updating.Current opinion in psychology · 2024Review
- Elevated accuracy in recognition of subliminal happy facial expressions in patients with panic disorder after psychotherapy.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Within-network brain connectivity during a social optimism task is related to personal optimism and optimism for in-group members.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Associations between Optimism and Attentional Biases as Measured by Threat-Avoidance and Positive-Search Tasks.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Predictive modeling of optimism bias using gray matter cortical thickness.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Emotional Recognition Training Enhances Attention to Emotional Stimuli Among Male Juvenile Delinquents.Psychology research and behavior management · 2023Article
- Positive attentional bias mediates the relationship between trait emotional intelligence and trait affect.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Whole-brain white matter correlates of personality profiles predictive of subjective well-being.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Enhanced sensitivity to optimistic cues is manifested in brain structure: a voxel-based morphometry study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Article
- Reduced network integration in default mode and executive networks is associated with social and personal optimism biases.Human brain mapping · 2021Article
- The Missing Pieces of the Puzzle: A Review on the Interactive Nature of A-Priori Expectancies and Attention Bias toward Threat.Brain sciences · 2020Review
- Biased cognition in East Asian and Western cultures.PloS one · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Identifying neurocognitive mechanisms underlying optimism bias is essential to understand its benefits for well-being and mental health. The combined cognitive biases hypothesis suggests that biases (e.g., in expectancies and attention) interact and mutually enforce each other. Whereas, in line with this hypothesis, optimistic expectancies have been shown to guide attention to positive information, reverse causal effects have not been investigated yet. Revealing such bidirectional optimism-attention interactions both on a behavioral and neural level could explain how cognitive biases contribute to a self-sustaining upward spiral of positivity. In this behavioral study, we hypothesized that extensive training to direct attention to positive information enhances optimism bias. To test this hypothesis, for 2 weeks, 149 participants underwent either daily online 80-trial attention bias modification training (ABMT) toward accepting faces and away from rejecting faces or neutral control training. Participants in the ABMT group were instructed to click as quickly as possible on the accepting face among 15 rejecting faces randomly displayed on a 4-by-4 matrix; participants in the control group were instructed to click on the five-petaled flower depicted among 15 seven-petaled flowers. Comparative optimism bias and state optimism were measured
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.