Cognitive bias modification for fear of cancer recurrence/progression

For this study, we will adopt a double-blind randomized controlled trial methodology, whereby the cancer survivors would be randomly allocated in one of two groups: (1) Cognitive Bias Modification intervention (2) A placebo control. Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation (CBM-I): The Word Sentence Association Paradigm (WSAP) will be used to modify interpretation bias with word-sentence pairings training participants to make a benign interpretation of these pairings. In a typical WSAP task (Beard & Amir, 2009), each trial begins with a fixation cross for 500 ms and participants are presented with a single word (benign or threatening) followed by an ambiguous sentence, and indicate whether the two are related or not. That is, participants decide whether or not a word (e.g., embarrassing) is related to an ambiguous sentence (e.g., people laugh after something you said). Each CBM-I session would last approximately for 10-15 minutes. Some participants may be asked to rate each situation based on how worrying each situation is for them. This may take an additional 15 minutes. The intervention will be delivered entirely online by an institutional software program (Qualtrics) that will randomly allocate participants in one of two groups. CBM-I will be delivered four times to each participant during the entire study. Time frame: CBM-I training session 1: day 1 of the study CBM-I training session 2: day 4 of the study CBM-I training session 3: day 7 of the study CBM-I training session 4 (FOLLOW-UP 1): day 14 of the study The number of training sessions completed is recorded for each participant.