Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health

Abstract Our mind’s eye and the role of internal attention in mental life and suffering has intrigued scholars for centuries. Yet, experimental study of internal attention has been elusive due to our limited capacity to control the timing and content of internal stimuli. We thus developed the Simula...

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Autores principales:	Iftach Amir, Liad Ruimi, Amit Bernstein
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/5f10fa8296c643f1ba233e56c60aa89c
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:5f10fa8296c643f1ba233e56c60aa89c2021-12-02T10:48:13ZSimulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health10.1038/s41598-021-81756-w2045-2322https://doaj.org/article/5f10fa8296c643f1ba233e56c60aa89c2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81756-whttps://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Our mind’s eye and the role of internal attention in mental life and suffering has intrigued scholars for centuries. Yet, experimental study of internal attention has been elusive due to our limited capacity to control the timing and content of internal stimuli. We thus developed the Simulated Thoughts Paradigm (STP) to experimentally deliver own-voice thought stimuli that simulate the content and experience of thinking and thereby experimental study of internal attentional processes. In independent experiments (N = 122) integrating STP into established cognitive-experimental tasks, we found and replicated evidence that emotional reactivity to negative thoughts predicts difficulty disengaging internal attention from, as well as biased selective internal attention of, those thoughts; these internal attention processes predict cognitive vulnerability (e.g., negative repetitive thinking) which thereby predict anxiety and depression. Proposed methods and findings may have implications for the study of information processing and attention in mental health broadly and models of internal attentional (dys)control in cognitive vulnerability and mental health more specifically.Iftach AmirLiad RuimiAmit BernsteinNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-17 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Iftach Amir Liad Ruimi Amit Bernstein Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health
description	Abstract Our mind’s eye and the role of internal attention in mental life and suffering has intrigued scholars for centuries. Yet, experimental study of internal attention has been elusive due to our limited capacity to control the timing and content of internal stimuli. We thus developed the Simulated Thoughts Paradigm (STP) to experimentally deliver own-voice thought stimuli that simulate the content and experience of thinking and thereby experimental study of internal attentional processes. In independent experiments (N = 122) integrating STP into established cognitive-experimental tasks, we found and replicated evidence that emotional reactivity to negative thoughts predicts difficulty disengaging internal attention from, as well as biased selective internal attention of, those thoughts; these internal attention processes predict cognitive vulnerability (e.g., negative repetitive thinking) which thereby predict anxiety and depression. Proposed methods and findings may have implications for the study of information processing and attention in mental health broadly and models of internal attentional (dys)control in cognitive vulnerability and mental health more specifically.
format	article
author	Iftach Amir Liad Ruimi Amit Bernstein
author_facet	Iftach Amir Liad Ruimi Amit Bernstein
author_sort	Iftach Amir
title	Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health
title_short	Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health
title_full	Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health
title_fullStr	Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health
title_full_unstemmed	Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health
title_sort	simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/5f10fa8296c643f1ba233e56c60aa89c
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Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health

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