Introduction to the special issue on Cognitive bias modification: Taking a step back to move forward?

Cognitive bias modification (CBM) research holds important theoretical and clinical potential. CBM represents one of the most exciting translational developments in experimental psychopathology research in recent years. Despite theoretical and methodological advances in the past 15 years, the clinical efficacy of CBM, to-date, has been disappointing. However, it is important to remember that the CBM therapeutics literature is only in its early stages of scientific development. We argue that the potential for novel approaches to CBM to contribute to disseminable psychological interventions is strong and has yet to be realized. Accordingly, we propose 5 inter-related steps that may help advance the basic and clinical science of CBM: (1) Innovation and refinement of the methodology to modify information-processing bias; (2) Advancing understanding of the nature of processing biases in order to guide their modification; (3) Conceptualizing and studying the moderating and mediating mechanisms underlying the modification of information-processing bias and their effects on maladaptation; (4) Focus on augmenting existing validated treatments, by targeting psychobehavioral processes proximally linked to information-processing biases; (5) Encouraging publication of methodologically strong, mixed and unexpected findings. Finally, we introduce papers in the special issue with respect to each of these future directions. These papers provide important new conceptual and methodological perspectives to advance CBM research.