Abstract

Background

Some cognitive biases, such as excessive attention to threat, are associated with PTSD. However, they may be adaptive for military personnel; attending to threat may improve safety for deployed personnel.

Aims

The extent to which military personnel with vs. without PTSD differ with respect to specific cognitive biases is currently unclear. This systematic review aimed to address this question.

Methods

PRISMA guidelines were followed. Articles were identified using a comprehensive literature search; 21 studies (with 1977 participants) were reviewed.

Results

All studies were of “moderate” or “strong” quality. Military personnel with vs. without PTSD used overgeneralised language when describing autobiographical memories and demonstrated impaired performance on a modified Stroop task. Studies using dot-probe paradigms conceptualised attentional response as a dynamic process, fluctuating between bias towards and away from threat; military personnel with vs. without PTSD demonstrated greater fluctuation. Studies using visual search tasks concluded that attentional bias in PTSD involves interference (difficulty disengaging from threat) rather than facilitation (enhanced threat detection). Finally, personnel with vs. without PTSD demonstrated interpretation bias, completing ambiguous sentences with negative rather than neutral endings.

Conclusion

The implications for military populations and recommendations for further research and clinical practice are considered.

Prospero registration

PROSPERO 2018 CRD42018092235.

中文翻译：

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有和没有 PTSD 的军人的认知偏差：系统回顾

摘要

背景

一些认知偏差，例如对威胁的过度关注，与 PTSD 相关。但是，它们可能适用于军事人员；处理威胁可能会提高部署人员的安全。

宗旨

目前尚不清楚有和没有 PTSD 的军人在特定认知偏差方面的差异程度。本系统综述旨在解决这个问题。

方法

遵循 PRISMA 准则。使用全面的文献搜索确定文章；审查了 21 项研究（有 1977 名参与者）。

结果

所有研究均具有“中等”或“强”质量。与没有 PTSD 的军事人员在描述自传体记忆时使用过度笼统的语言，并在修改后的 Stroop 任务中表现出受损的表现。使用点探针范式的研究将注意力反应概念化为一个动态过程，在对威胁的偏见和远离威胁之间波动；有 PTSD 和没有 PTSD 的军事人员表现出更大的波动。使用视觉搜索任务的研究得出结论，PTSD 中的注意力偏差涉及干扰（难以摆脱威胁）而不是促进（增强的威胁检测）。最后，有 PTSD 和没有 PTSD 的人员都表现出解释偏见，用消极而非中性的结尾完成模棱两可的句子。

结论

考虑了对军人的影响以及对进一步研究和临床实践的建议。

普洛斯彼罗注册

PROSPERO 2018 CRD42018092235。