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Updated: Feb 19, 2026

The Emotional Stroop Task: Assessing Cognitive Performance under Exposure to Emotional Content
Published on: June 29, 2016
Confusing procedures with process when appraising the impact of cognitive bias modification on emotional
Ben Grafton1, Colin MacLeod2, Daniel Rudaizky2
1Ben Grafton, PhD, Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia; Colin MacLeod, PhD, Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, School of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania; Daniel Rudaizky, PhD, Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia; Emily A. Holmes, PhD, Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK, and Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; Elske Salemink, PhD, Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Elaine Fox, PhD, Oxford Centre for Emotion and Affective Neuroscience, and Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK; Lies Notebaert, PhD, Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia ben.grafton@uwa.edu.au.
Abstract:
If meta-analysis is to provide valuable answers, then it is critical to ensure clarity about the questions being asked. Here, we distinguish two important questions concerning cognitive bias modification research that are not differentiated in the meta-analysis recently published by Cristea et al (2015) in this journal: (1) do the varying procedures that investigators have employed with the intention of modifying cognitive bias, on average, significantly impact emotional vulnerability?; and (2) does the process of successfully modifying cognitive bias, on average, significantly impact emotional vulnerability? We reanalyse the data from Cristea et al to address this latter question. Our new analyses demonstrate that successfully modifying cognitive bias does significantly alter emotional vulnerability. We revisit Cristea et al's conclusions in light of these findings.
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