Attentional bias in psychopathology [L'attentional bias nella psicopatologia]

Empirical evidence suggest that in several mental disorders a bias do exist in the information processing of symptom-related stimuli. The bias can be related to attention, memory and judgement processes. The attentional bias consists of a facilitating effect in the orienting of attention toward symptom-related stimuli or a difficulty in disengaging attention from symptomrelated stimuli. The attentional bias has been indicated as an important factor for the occurrence and the maintenance of several disorders. The aim of this review was to examine the literature available, addressing the issue of evidencing empirical support in the fields of anxiety disorder,depression, addiction, eating disorder and insomnia. Moreover we evaluated whether inconsistent results could be attributed to methodological differences (since the different paradigms used capture different aspects of the attentional bias process) or to conceptual reasons and to outline future perspectives. © 2011 Edizioni Erickson.