Web-based Interpretation Training For Anxiety

Training involves presenting participants with brief scenarios that introduce an ambiguous potential threat. Critically, the ambiguity regarding how the situation is resolved remains until the last word of the scenario, which is presented as a word fragment that the participant must solve, which will then assign a benign (rather than threatening) meaning to the scenario.

This condition follows the same design and content as the Positive Training conditions, except the word fragments differ; rather than consistently resolving the scenario in a positive direction, half of the scenarios will end with a negative (anxiety-congruent) word fragment, and half will end with a positive word fragment.

We will test whether priming anxious concerns and feared negative outcomes on the web via the addition of a guided anxious imagery prime at the start of each session will enhance effects.

At the start of each session, participants will complete a neutral control imagery exercise where they do a guided imagery exercise imagining upcoming mundane tasks, like brushing one's teeth.