Depression-related attentional bias: The influence of symptom severity and symptom specificity

Abstract

Attentional bias to negative information has been considered as a vulnerability factor for depression, enhancing susceptibility and maintenance of this disorder. Biased attention has been studied in clinically as well as subclinically depressed samples. The present study examined the relationship between attentional bias, symptom severity, and specific components of depression (cognitive, affective, and somatic). We compared attentional bias, measured with a modified spatial cueing task, for positive and negative words presented for 1500 ms across three groups of individuals: (1) a group of healthy controls; (2) individuals with mild symptoms; and (3) individuals with moderate to severe depressive symptoms. Maintained attention to negative information was found in individuals with higher symptom severity and was specifically associated with the cognitive symptoms of depression.

Keywords:

• Attentional bias
• Depression
• Posner
• Cueing
• Dysphoria

Notes

¹A separate 3×3×2 ANOVA with gender as additional between-subjects factor revealed no main effect, F(1, 89) = 0.01, p>.1, nor any three-way interaction effect, F(4, 176) = 0.70, p >.1, including gender. Therefore, gender was dropped from further analyses.