How hard is it (to help smokers) to quit smoking?

Helping smokers to quit smoking is one of the effective ways to reduce smoking-related health, economic, and social burdens. Si Wen studied the potential of a new intervention, a cognitive training called Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM). CBM aims to directly change biases in cognitive processes, such as biased attention towards certain cues in the environment. Wen concludes that in its current form CBM does not lead to effective behavioural change and substantial modification of the training procedure and design are needed. Wednesday 22 December she will defend her thesis at the University of Amsterdam. In the past decade, a new type of cognitive training, called Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM), has received increasing attention as a potential (add-on) intervention for the treatment of addiction. CBM includes a variety of computerized training elements aimed at interfering with attentional, evaluative, or behavioral processes triggered by substance-related cues in the environment, like seeing someone else smoking.