Unreliability as a threat to understanding psychopathology: The cautionary tale of attentional bias.

ABSTRACT: The use of unreliable measures constitutes a threat to our understanding of psychopathology, because advancement of science using both behavioral and biologically oriented measures can only be certain if such measurements are reliable. Two pillars of the National Institute of Mental Health's portfolio-the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative for psychopathology and the target engagement initiative in clinical trials-cannot succeed without measures that possess the high reliability necessary for tests involving mediation and selection based on individual differences. We focus on the historical lack of reliability of attentional bias measures as an illustration of how reliability can pose a threat to our understanding. Our own data replicate previous findings of poor reliability for tr

SUBMITTER: Rodebaugh TL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4980228 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature