Gaze-fixation and pupil dilation in the processing of emotional faces: The role of rumination

Abstract

Sustained attentional processing of negative information plays a significant role in the development and maintenance of depression. The present study examines the relationships between rumination, a relevant factor in information processing in depression, and the attentional mechanisms activated in individuals with different levels of depression severity when attending to emotional information (i.e., sad, angry and happy faces). Behavioural and physiological indicators of sustained processing were assessed in 126 participants (39 dysphoric and 87 non-dysphoric) using eye-tracking technology. Pupil dilation and total time attending to negative faces were correlated with a global ruminative style in the total sample once depression severity was controlled. Furthermore, in dysphoric participants the brooding component of rumination was specifically associated with the total time attending to sad faces. Finally, bootstrapping analyses showed that the relationships between global rumination and pupil diameter to emotional faces were accounted by total time attending to emotional faces, specifically for participants reporting lower levels of depression severity. The results support the idea that sustained processing of negative information is associated with a higher ruminative style and indicate differential associations between these factors at different levels of depressive symptomatology.

Keywords:

• Depression
• Rumination
• Emotional information processing
• Selective attention
• Pupil dilation

This research was supported by Spanish Ministry of Education grants [BES-2010-030840] to the first author and [AP2006-01895] to the second author, and a Spanish Ministry of Economy grant [PSI2012-35500] to the third author.

This research was supported by Spanish Ministry of Education grants [BES-2010-030840] to the first author and [AP2006-01895] to the second author, and a Spanish Ministry of Economy grant [PSI2012-35500] to the third author.

Notes

¹ Analyses showed that there were not significant differences among the three types of faces in prototypicality, F (2, 81) = 1.21, n. s., η² = .029, and intensity, F (2, 81) = 1.39, n. s., η² = .03. The mean scores for emotional prototypicality for the happy, angry and sad expressions were 5.53 (SD = .39), 5.39 (SD = .52) and 5.32 (SD = .62), respectively. Mean intensity scores were 5.55 (SD = .51), 5.86 (SD = .58) and 5.76 (SD = .94), respectively.

² Given the significant gender differences found in brooding, we examined whether statistically controlling for gender affected any of the reported results. The findings from these analyses were similar to those reported below.

³ Further analyses were conducted to test whether a more general association between rumination and total time fixating on faces (both emotional and neutral) per se, could account for specific relations between rumination components and total time fixating on emotional faces. Overall percentage of time spent fixating on emotional faces was 70% of the total time fixating on faces (non-dysphoric participants: happy-neutral faces trials: 69.7%, angry-neutral faces trials: 69.9%, sad-neutral faces trials: 69.7%; dysphoric participants: happy-neutral faces trials: 70.7%, angry-neutral faces trials: 70.3%, sad-neutral faces trials: 70%). Both zero-order and partial correlation analyses controlling for current depressive symptoms did not show any significant association between indices of overall time fixating on faces and global ruminative style, brooding or reflection (all r's < .162; all p's > .05) in the total sample. Furthermore, no significant zero-order or partial correlations were found for the dysphoric (all r's < .165; all p's > .05) nor the non-dysphoric group (all r's < .198; all p's > .05), separately. Thus, our analyses indicated that rumination did not contribute to a general sustained processing of information per se, but it contributed to a specific sustained processing of emotional information.