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From Cognitive Psychology to Clinical and Health Research and Back: Applying Tasks and Concepts from Cognitive Psychology to Health-Related Questions

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Mental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 13010

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Franziska Plessow

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, United States
Interests: biological psychology; cognitive control; cognitive psychology; experimental psychology; psychoneuroendocrinology
Dr. Thomas Kleinsorge

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Leibniz Research Center for Working Enviroment and Human Factors, Germany
Interests: cognitive control; (Un)Intentional behavior; task switching; cognitive flexibility; stress; psychoneuroendocrinology; representations of tasks and actions
Dr. Poppy Watson

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales (UNSW) Australia, Sydney, Australia
Interests: attentional control; goal-directed actions; habits; reward-seeking behavior; eating behavior; addiction; compulsivity

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The applications of tasks and concepts from cognitive psychology to health-related questions are widespread in clinical and health research. Experimental paradigms designed to capture specific cognitive capabilities are frequently used in health science, such as cognitive tasks to examine the balance between cognitive control (exerted to achieve a specific internal goal) and conflicting action tendencies and desires to unveil the mechanisms driving maladaptive behavior and decision-making as observed in substance use, anxiety, or eating disorders. Similarly, theories from cognitive psychology have informed a number of behavioral interventions in health psychology, such as training programs for countering cognitive biases or the use of implementation intentions to reduce snacking. Conversely, insights from the health and clinical domains around patterns of cognitive dysfunction and the intersection between cognition and motivation contribute to refining cognitive theories and stimulate the development of experimental paradigms to tackle novel research questions in basic and clinical research. Thus, this fruitful exchange of knowledge and tools implemented by interdisciplinary research teams presents a cornerstone of advancement in both cognitive psychology and clinical/health research. However, while the cross-disciplinary exchange of methods and models is taking place, time lags in communicating recent advancements in one field across disciplinary boundaries and a lack of established channels for this enriching communication between the research communities still limit the full potential of this important exchange of insights. This Special Issue aims to bring together experts from cognitive psychology and clinical and health research to highlight new areas of research with high transfer potential, provide state-of-the-art examples of successful cross-disciplinary enrichment, and outline novel avenues for further promoting a constructive and timely exchange of knowledge between cognitive psychology and health and clinical research.

We would be delighted to have you join us in this cross-disciplinary endeavor!

Best wishes,

Franziska Plessow
Thomas Kleinsorge
Poppy Watson
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cognitive psychology
  • clinical psychology
  • cognitive control
  • executive dysfunction
  • impulsivity
  • intentional behavior
  • response inhibition
  • self-regulation
  • compulsivity
  • maladaptive behavior
  • behavioral interventions

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 1170 KiB  
Article
When Alcohol Adverts Catch the Eye: A Psychometrically Reliable Dual-Probe Measure of Attentional Bias
by Sera Wiechert, Ben Grafton, Colin MacLeod and Reinout W. Wiers
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(24), 13263; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph182413263 - 16 Dec 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2260
Abstract
Existing tasks assessing substance-related attentional biases are characterized by low internal consistency and test–retest reliability. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a novel dual-probe task to measure alcohol-related attentional bias. Undergraduate students were recruited in June 2019 (N = 63; [...] Read more.
Existing tasks assessing substance-related attentional biases are characterized by low internal consistency and test–retest reliability. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a novel dual-probe task to measure alcohol-related attentional bias. Undergraduate students were recruited in June 2019 (N = 63; final N = 57; mean age = 20.88, SD = 2.63, 67% females). In the dual-probe task, participants were presented with simultaneous visual streams of adverts promoting either alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks, and probes were presented in both streams. The dual-probe task measured the percentage of accurately identified probes that appeared on alcohol adverts in relation to total accuracy. The dual-probe task displayed excellent split-half reliability (M = 0.90, SD = 0.11; α = 0.90; 95% CI [0.84, 0.93]), and the derived attentional bias measure was significantly positively associated with beer drinking in a taste-test (r (57) = 0.33, p = 0.013; 95% CI [0.07, 0.54]), with habitual drinking (r (57) = 0.27, p = 0.045; 95% CI [0.01, 0.49]), and with increased craving (r (57) = 0.29, p = 0.031; 95% CI [0.03, 0.51]). Thus, the dual-probe task assessed attentional bias with excellent internal consistency and was associated with laboratory and habitual drinking measures, demonstrating initial support for the task’s utility in addiction research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Cognitive Psychology to Clinical and Health Research and Back: Applying Tasks and Concepts from Cognitive Psychology to Health-Related Questions)
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14 pages, 1418 KiB  
Article
Perceiving the Self and Emotions with an Anxious Mind: Evidence from an Implicit Perceptual Task
by Michella Feldborg, Naomi A. Lee, Kalai Hung, Kaiping Peng and Jie Sui
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(22), 12096; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph182212096 - 18 Nov 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2491
Abstract
Anxiety disorders cause mental distress and low wellbeing in many people worldwide. Theories of anxiety describe negative worldviews and self-views as maintaining factors of the disorders. Recent research in social cognition has found a link between depression and altered perceptual biases to emotions, [...] Read more.
Anxiety disorders cause mental distress and low wellbeing in many people worldwide. Theories of anxiety describe negative worldviews and self-views as maintaining factors of the disorders. Recent research in social cognition has found a link between depression and altered perceptual biases to emotions, but the same research on anxiety is still missing. In this study, we measured perceptual biases to emotional and self-related stimuli in sub-clinically anxious participants and healthy controls using a self-emotional shape-label matching task. Results demonstrate that anxious participants had a diminished perceptual self-bias compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, the severity of anxiety was related to an emotional bias towards valanced other-related stimuli. The findings confirm the hypothesis that anxious individuals display an altered self-prioritisation effect in comparison with healthy individuals and that anxiety severity is linked to altered responses to emotionally valanced others. These findings have potential implications for early diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Cognitive Psychology to Clinical and Health Research and Back: Applying Tasks and Concepts from Cognitive Psychology to Health-Related Questions)
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Review

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13 pages, 333 KiB  
Review
Stimulus-Response Conflict Tasks and Their Use in Clinical Psychology
by Thomas Kleinsorge
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(20), 10657; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph182010657 - 12 Oct 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2010
Abstract
This article reviews the historical usage of the concept of ‘conflict’ in psychology and delineates the design and development of three basic conflict tasks (Stroop, Flanker, Stop Signal). Afterwards, important theoretical concepts to account for conflict processing are introduced. In the second part, [...] Read more.
This article reviews the historical usage of the concept of ‘conflict’ in psychology and delineates the design and development of three basic conflict tasks (Stroop, Flanker, Stop Signal). Afterwards, important theoretical concepts to account for conflict processing are introduced. In the second part, the usage of these tasks in clinical psychology is considered. The article closes with some reflections regarding factors that may have been hitherto largely neglected in this respect. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Cognitive Psychology to Clinical and Health Research and Back: Applying Tasks and Concepts from Cognitive Psychology to Health-Related Questions)

Other

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10 pages, 339 KiB  
Opinion
Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology
by Bernhard Hommel and Christian Beste
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(21), 11126; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph182111126 - 22 Oct 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1638
Abstract
Efficient transfer of concepts and mechanistic insights from the cognitive to the health sciences and back requires a clear, objective description of the problem that this transfer ought to solve. Unfortunately, however, the actual descriptions are commonly penetrated with, and sometimes even motivated [...] Read more.
Efficient transfer of concepts and mechanistic insights from the cognitive to the health sciences and back requires a clear, objective description of the problem that this transfer ought to solve. Unfortunately, however, the actual descriptions are commonly penetrated with, and sometimes even motivated by, cultural norms and preferences, a problem that has colored scientific theorizing about behavioral control—the key concept for many psychological health interventions. We argue that ideologies have clouded our scientific thinking about mental health in two ways: by considering the societal utility of individuals and their behavior a key criterion for distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy people, and by dividing what actually seem to be continuous functions relating psychological and neurocognitive underpinnings to human behavior into binary, discrete categories that are then taken to define clinical phenomena. We suggest letting both traditions go and establish a health psychology that restrains from imposing societal values onto individuals, and then taking the fit between behavior and values to conceptualize unhealthiness. Instead, we promote a health psychology that reconstructs behavior that is considered to be problematic from well-understood mechanistic underpinnings of human behavior. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Cognitive Psychology to Clinical and Health Research and Back: Applying Tasks and Concepts from Cognitive Psychology to Health-Related Questions)
15 pages, 1800 KiB  
Commentary
A Conceptual Model of Long-Term Weight Loss Maintenance: The Importance of Cognitive, Empirical and Computational Approaches
by Darren Haywood, Blake J. Lawrence, Frank D. Baughman and Barbara A. Mullan
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(2), 635; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph18020635 - 13 Jan 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3494
Abstract
Living with obesity is related to numerous negative health outcomes, including various cancers, type II diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Although much is known about the factors associated with obesity, and a range of weight loss interventions have been established, changing health-related behaviours to [...] Read more.
Living with obesity is related to numerous negative health outcomes, including various cancers, type II diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Although much is known about the factors associated with obesity, and a range of weight loss interventions have been established, changing health-related behaviours to positively affect obesity outcomes has proven difficult. In this paper, we first draw together major factors that have emerged within the literature on weight loss to describe a new conceptual framework of long-term weight loss maintenance. Key to this framework is the suggestion that increased positive social support influences a reduction in psychosocial stress, and that this has the effect of promoting better executive functioning which in turn facilitates the development of healthy habits and the breaking of unhealthy habits, leading to improved ongoing maintenance of weight loss. We then outline how the use of computational approaches are an essential next step, to more rigorously test conceptual frameworks, such as the one we propose, and the benefits that a mixture of conceptual, empirical and computational approaches offer to the field of health psychology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Cognitive Psychology to Clinical and Health Research and Back: Applying Tasks and Concepts from Cognitive Psychology to Health-Related Questions)
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