Abstract

SANZ BLASCO, Rubén; MIGUEL-TOBAL, Juan José  and  CASADO MORALES, M.ª Isabel. Memory Bias in Anxiety Disorders. Clínica y Salud [online]. 2011, vol.22, n.2, pp.187-197. ISSN 2174-0550.

There are currently a large number of theoretical models that defend the importance of cognitive appraisal in the onset and maintenance of anxiety response. Research into the cognitive processes underlying anxiety response have clearly shown that, in comparison to normal subjects, anxious subjects display a tendency to selectively pay attention and catastrophically interpret information that is congruent with their emotional state. However, there is a third bias about which the data from the various investigations have yielded diffuse results in the different disorders and experimental tasks. This is the case of memory bias, which can be defined as the tendency to preferentially recall previously presented negative stimulation in comparison to neutral stimulation. Atheoretical review is presented with the main goal of determining the existence of memory bias across diverse anxiety disorders and the different experimental tasks used to assess this bias.

Keywords : Cognitive bias; memory bias; anxiety disorders.

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