Ariel Zvielli

• Ph.D
• University of Haifa

Biases of emotional attention are believed to be central to human (mal)adaptation and multiple forms of psychopathology. Yet fundamental questions remain regarding the nature and empirical study of attentional bias (AB). We thus aimed to (a) test a novel conceptualization and related operationalization of AB expression in time and (b) illuminate th...

Objective: Threat-related attention bias figures prominently in contemporary accounts of the maintenance of anxiety disorders, yet longitudinal intervention research relating attention bias to anxiety symptom severity is limited. Capitalizing on recent advances in the conceptualization and measurement of attention bias, we aimed to examine the rel...

Theory implicates attentional bias (AB) or dysregulated attentional processing of emotional information in the recurrence of major depressive episodes. However, empirical study of AB among remitted depressed patients is limited in scope and has yielded mixed findings. Mixed findings may be accounted for by how the field has conceptualized and there...

The use of unreliable measures constitutes a threat to our understanding of psychopathology, because advancement of science using both behavioral and biologically-oriented measures can only be certain if such measurements are reliable. Two pillars of NIMH’s portfolio – the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative for psychopathology and the targe...

The aim of the present study was to question untested assumptions about the nature of the expression of Attentional Bias (AB) towards and away from threat stimuli. We tested the idea that high trait anxious individuals (N = 106; M(SD)age = 23.9(3.2) years; 68% women) show a stable AB towards multiple categories of threatening information using the...

Objectives We tested a brief computerized mental training intervention grounded in mindfulness principles – Attention Feedback Awareness and Control Training (A-FACT). A-FACT is designed to train meta-awareness of, and thereby greater self-regulatory control over, (biased) attentional processing of emotionally salient information. Methods We studi...

We explore the human capacity for and the function(s) of meta-awareness for biased attentional processing of emotional information (MAB) subserving mental (ill) health. We do so by integrating probe-caught sampling methods, signal detection theory, and multilevel modeling of cognitive-experimental laboratory data among daily smokers (N = 75) known...

Objective: We tested whether mindfulness de-couples the expected anxiogenic effects of distress intolerance on psychological and physiological reactivity to and recovery from an anxiogenic stressor among participants experimentally sensitized to experience distress. Method: N = 104 daily smokers underwent 18-hours of biochemically-verified smoki...

We tested whether cognitive fusion impairs emotion differentiation and thereby mediates relations between cognitive fusion and depression and panic symptoms among 55 adults (Mage= 26.8 (3.9), 50.9% women). Using visual stimuli, we elicited multiple emotion states and measured (a) emotional intensity – the subjective emotion intensity of elicited em...

Background: Attentional bias (AB) to threat is thought to play a key role in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress symptomatology (PTS). Empirical evidence though is inconsistent. Some studies report associations between AB towards, threat and PTS; other studies report associations between AB away from threat and PTS; yet other s...

We aimed to illuminate the theorized, yet empirically elusive, connection between covert and overt attentional processes sub-serving attentional biases (AB). We found that covert and overt attentional processes were each expressed dynamically, fluctuating from moment-to-moment between phases of (over)engagement and phases of avoidance of threat sti...

Background: Survivors of violent conflict and atrocities, Forcibly Displaced Persons (FDPs) are at risk for trauma-related mental health problems. Experimental clinical research key to the development of interventions tailored to FDPs is limited. Aims: We examined relations between Attentional bias (AB) to trauma cues, posttraumatic stress symptoms...

Recent findings suggest biases of emotional attention (BEA) may be expressed dynamically, fluctuating from moment to moment between overengagement and avoidance of emotional stimuli. We attempted to modify these temporal dynamics of BEA to threat among trait-anxious adults (N = 61) using Attention Feedback Awareness and Control Training (A-FACT). A...

We present an experimental investigation of a novel intervention paradigm targeting attentional bias – Attention Feedback Awareness and Control Training (A-FACT). A-FACT is grounded in the novel hypothesis that training awareness of (biased) attentional allocation will lead to greater self-regulatory control of attention and thereby ameliorate atte...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the associations between a factor mixture-based taxonic-dimensional model of anxiety sensitivity (AS) and posttraumatic stress, panic, generalized anxiety, depression, psychiatric multimorbidity, and quality of life among a young adult sample exposed to traumatic stress (N = 103, n (females) = 66, M (age) = 23....