The effects of distraction on desensitization and reprocessing

The present analogue study of seventy-two students with mild spider anxiety assessed the role of distraction in the desensitization and reprocessing of aversive information. Accessing different components of Baddeleyʹs model of short-term memory, three treatment groups involving distraction tasks and one control group maintaining focussed exposure were compared in a pre-test post-test experimental design. The results indicated that all groups experienced a similar reduction in both self-report and heart-rate measures of anxiety. However, at the follow up phase, the groups containing a distraction task showed an increase in anxiety levels significantly greater than that for the control condition. No differences were reported between any of the distraction groups.