**1.4. Cognitive biases**

There are some types of information-processing biases in SAD. Attentional biases, interpretation biases, memory biases, and cost/probability biases are often modified in bias modification. The effects of cognitive restructuring have been indicated through various studies. For example, Clark et al. [19] indicated the following as intervention targets of cognitive therapy: (1) attention, or an increase in attention and reduction in observation of others and making association with others' responses; (2) recognition of physiological responses, or the use of incorrect inner information that causes excessively negative ideas about how others think of the self; (3) safety behaviors (avoidance), or the excessive use of explicit or implicit safety behaviors; and (4): information-processing biases, or the processing of information before and after an issue. They thus compared the effects of cognitive therapy and exposure + applied relaxation therapy. The results indicated the high impact of cognitive therapy on improving SAD symptoms, indicative of the effectiveness of the intervention in cognition characteristic of SAD.

The research on the treatment of SAD has thus focused on the effectiveness of using cognitive therapy techniques to change specific cognitions or thought patterns [14, 18, 19]. However, SAD treatment research has also focused on the reduction of cost and probability bias. Foa et al. [20] reported that the reduction of cost bias strongly predicted the reduction of SAD symptoms. Rapee et al. [14] showed that a change in cost bias was highly related to a decrease in the severity of SAD symptoms using a group CBT (CBGT) program. Shirotsuki et al. [21] suggested that repeated exposure and reduction of cost bias may have an effect on the improvement of SAD symptoms.
