Cognitive-Affective control training reduces worry and GAD symptoms: investigating training and transfer effect

The Symptoms of the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) have been considered an index of cognitive control deficiency. The aim of this study was to investigate whether enhancing cognitive control over emotional stimuli can decrease worry intrusions and severity of the GAD symptoms. Based on the results of the structured clinical interview for the DSM-۵ (SCID), ۴۵ students of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM) who had GAD, were chosen to participate in this study. Then, they were assigned equally and randomly to the three conditions of intervention, control and active control groups. Subsequently, they completed the PSWQ, GAD-۷, emotional stroop task, and Go/No Go task as pre-test. The intervention group received ۱۶ sessions of the cognitive-affective control training using the emotional stroop with the trial-based feedback. Also, the active control group received the same amount of the training sessions of the emotional stroop with receiving no feedback, and finally, the control group was on a waiting list. After post-test assessments, the results of ANCOVA showed that the training sessions were effective for the stroop performance, reduction in worry intrusions, and GAD symptoms, while the training on the cognitive inhibition did not transfer to the behavioral inhibition. The findings revealed that not only cognitive control plays a major role in worry and GAD symptoms, but also cognitive control training might be a promising path to decrease the severity of anxiety disorders. Training with emotional stimuli can enhance performance, and using trial-based feedback can pave the way to get better clinical results.

Keywords:

Generalized anxiety disorder , Worry , Cognitive Control Training , inhibition