Research conducted within the general paradigm of cognitive bias modification (CBM) reveals that emotional biases in attention, interpretation, and memory are not merely associated with emotional disorders but contribute to them. After briefly describing research on both emotional biases and their modification, the authors examine similarities between CBM paradigms and older experimental paradigms used in research on learning and memory. The techniques and goals of CBM research are compared with other approaches to understanding cognition–emotion interactions. From a functional perspective, the CBM tradition reminds us to use experimental tools to evaluate assumptions about clinical phenomena and, more generally, about causal relationships between cognitive processing and emotion.
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